White-box Tablets From China On A Roll at Robert Pogson

“Some tablet exhibitors at the ongoing HKEF 2012 (Hong Kong Electronics Fair, Autumn Edition) estimate that China-based white-box makers as a whole are shipping four million tablets a month currently.

Allen Wu, president, ARM China, predicts that shipments of Android-based tablets by China makers are likely to reach 50 million units in 2012 and increase to 100 million units in 2013.”

see Demand for white-box tablets keeps growing despite keen competition.

By comparison, Apple shipped 17 million tablets last quarter, so this is a major piece of the pie and it is competition particularly in emerging markets which are quite price-sensitive.

Also by comparison, shipments of x86 PCs have been down for several quarters so ~100% per annum growth in tablets and Android/Linux tablets is a huge shift in how IT is done. Sooner or later even the naysayers will have to open their eyes and see that the good old days of Wintel are past. In this market, is anyone going to buy a Wintel tablet? A WARM tablet? Some. There’s no way retailers are going to give M$ a monopoly on retail shelves so M$ will be just another player in the tablet arena and a shrinking player in IT overall.

Here’s what $250 will buy you:

The LePan II comes with a 9.7 inch screen , Android/Linux 4.0 and 1.2gHz SnapDragon processor with 8gB built-in storage and 1gB RAM.

Here’s what $56 will buy you:

PanDigital Star 7inch e-Reader with 2gB storage and 256MB RAM

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.