Not as much Tablet news this week around now that CES has wrapped up. All external links go to Tom’s Hardware unless otherwise stated.

Tablet Announcements:

• Gigabyte Announces Two Windows 8 Tablets – The 11.6-inch S1185 and the 10.1-inch S1082. Both seem to have decent specs and both will use Windows 8 Pro. Pricing not yet announced and likely won’t be until we get closer to the February 2013 and March 2013 releases for the S1082 and S1185 respectfully.
• Archos 80 Titanium tablet has same resolution as iPad Mini for $169 [C|Net] – Mentioned this new product line from the French company in last week’s Tablet News. This Android tablet which is part of their Elements family has a 1.6GHz dual-core processor, a quad-core graphics processor, and 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage with a microSD expansion slot, a 0.3-megapixel front camera, and 2-megapixel rear camera, Micro-USB and Mini-HDMI ports.
• Asus Announces $149 7-inch Tablet: MeMO Pad – This sounds like it going to be a scaled down budget version ($149) of a Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire with a single core Via WM8950 CPU. 1 GB of RAM supporting a 1024 by 600 pixel resolution (both the Nexus and Kindle Fire support 1280×800 resolution)
• Samsung Cancels Windows RT Tablets Release in U.S. – No big surprise here. In an interview with C|Net “the firm’s retail partners indicated demand for Windows 8-powered devices is modest.” Well, what do you expect you either have the crippled Windows RT or Windows 8 Pro with costs as much as the high-end laptops.
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and Tab 2 tablets get Android 4.1 update [C|Net] – Besides the Android update Samsung included several useful-sounding features [YouTube].
• Kite Tablet Unveiled, Runs Android and Ubuntu – DaVinci Mobile Technology (Italy). The tablet is priced around running around $413. However, it is capable of running both Android and Ubuntu and has some good specs. 10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels; 1.4 GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 processor; 2 GB of RAM; 32 GB of storage, a microSD slot; 2-megapixel camera (rear); front-facing VGA snapper.
• Rumors Point to Water-resistant Sony Xperia Z Tablet – Supports a 10.1-inch display. 1.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU as the Xperia Z, 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and LTE. Also no longer appears to be a rummor when a Japanese carrier has mistakenly confirmed the former device’s existence.

Other Tablet News

• Phablets Are Here to Stay, Says Samsung – Phablet, a hybrid between a smartphone and tablet. It seems in the US people wanted voice calling with Samsung’s 7-inch Galaxy Tablet.
• Google Nexus 7 Tops iPad in Japan – While I liked the display on the iPad, I did not like the $500 price tag. One of the reasons I opted for the Google Nexus 7 back in December. Plus, I am not a real big fan of Apple products.
• World’s First Tablet That Can Grow Lumpy Keys Revealed – This is rather interesting and kinda cool. It is much easier to just follow the link and watch the video, than to try explain the concept.
• Judge Rules Samsung Tablets Don’t Infringe iPad Patents – A court in the Netherlands concluded “We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple’s registered design features can be found in numerous examples,” Samsung said in a statement. All this ‘patent abuse’ litigation is getting rather old now.

and while on the subject of Samsung and iPad…

• Samsung May Launch 8-inch Galaxy Note to Rival iPad Mini – Samsung will preview this Android based tablet at the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona. This 8-inch Galaxy Note (codenamed Kona) will sport a 1280 x 800 TFT (Super Clear LCD) display, a 5MP camera mounted on the back, a 1.3MP camera on the front, and a 4600 mAh battery, 2 GB of RAM, and either 16 or 32 GB of internal storage plus a microSD card slot to expand storage up to an additional 32 GB. No word at this time of the price.