Viewsonic's latest tablets have already become available for pre-order in the U.K., but the company on Monday announced that two products, the Viewpad 7 and Viewpad 10, will soon be available in the US.
The Viewpad 7 features a 7-inch capacitive multi-touch screen, Android 2.2, front and back cameras, with WiFi and 3-G connectivity built in. It will have 512 MB of free internal memory, with space for a microSD card. Though not intended to be used primarily as an ebook reader, the Viewpad 7 will come with the Kobo reading application. The Viewpad 7 will support apps from the Android Market, and thanks to the phone-like 800-by-480 resolution, apps will likely look better than they would on the higher-resolution screens on some tablets.
The larger member of the Viewpad line, the Viewpad 10, makes some bolder—though not necessarily smarter—choices. The 10-inch tablet will dual-boot Windows 7 Home Premium, and Android 1.6, to give users the option of using all their Windows applications—Outlook and the like—or booting Android to get a more tablet-friendly experience. It sports a 1024-by-600 screen with capacitive multi-touch, a 16-GB SSD hard drive, and a 1.66-GHz processor—it's equipped to run most desktop apps, and its specs sound more like a laptop or desktop than a tablet. With a 1.3-megapixel webcam and built-in microphone, it's also well-suited for video conferencing.
The Viewpad 7, geared more toward consumers, goes on sale late this year, for a price of $479. The Viewpad 10, clearly the business-centric model in the Viewpad line, will be available early next year for $629. Whether either will make a splash in the torrential downpour of tablets that is inevitably on its way to stores for the holiday season remains to be seen.
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