First mainstream Android tablet to be shipped in September by Velocity

24th August, 2010 by adina
Tags: , , ,

Velocity Micro has recently committed itself to the world of tablets by launching preorders for the new Cruz Reader. This is a seven-inch Android 2.1 slate and is due to ship both online and to electronics stores starting September and being priced at $200. Late September will provide the launch of the wider-aspect Cruz Tablet and child oriented StoryPad; the first will be priced at $300, while the latter will only cost $150.

With its seven inches, the Cruz Reader has been developed both as an e-book device and as a general media player. Like many traditional-sized smartphones, it only has an 800×480 resolution, but in a 4:3 ration, which suits better to reading text. Velocity Micro preloads Borders’ bookstore application and also promises access to over two million titles. The device can handle successfully 720p video, with around 4GB of storage on a microSD card.

Even if the Cruz Reader comes from a company which is best known for its custom gaming PCs, it may be the first authentic mainstream, widely available Android tablet in the USA. Except from the Augen GenTouch78, which has been rather clouded and limited in availability, Android has been practically non-existent in the tablet area; many of the Android major releases in this space will only take place this fall or, more probably, in early 2011. Many of these tablets have been postponed in order to implement optimized applications for the larger display area (for example, Notion Ink’s Adam).

In the relatively new touch-only tablet area, Apple has been practically uncontested. The company almost has complete share both in mind share and in the actual market; most of the customers are much more aware of the iPad and, moreover, don’t know about existing alternatives to Apple’s tablet.


  • Share

 

Readers Comments