Who will lead in 2011, Motorola Xoom, RIM Playbook, Lenovo LePad or Notion Adam Ink?

Since 2010, the media has been buzzing about tablet PCs that took over the market, but none has matched the potential of Apple iPad with its simple but killer features. Now, Motorola, RIM and Lenovo, few of the major players in the market are hoping to capture their share of success in the tablet PC world.

Motorola is the latest to enter the market with Xoom, which is hyped to be a potential threat to the iPad and other tablets in the market. But RIM doesn’t fall behind, as they have quite bit of loyal following around the world for their products, so PlayBook is sure to have good number of consumer’s intake. Lenovo has already released their dual device tablet LePad which acts as tablet and a laptop. Another tablet whose pre-orders where sold out completely was Notion Adam Ink, a tablet from Bangalore-based company.

So these major tablets have brought new flare into the already crowded market of tablet PCs.

Motorola Xoom features Google’s latest OS, the Google Android Honeycomb (3.0). The operating system is specifically designed for large screen tablets. The tablet features 10.1-inch display (1280 x 800 pixels), weighs in at 730 g, has a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor with 1 GHz speed, contains a memory of 1GB RAM, a camera of 5 mega-pixels with video capture of 720p HD, additional camera of 2 mega-pixels, internal storage of 32 GB, supports Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n along with 3G, 4G LTE upgradeable option and also has built-in online services support like Facebook, Picasa and Twitter.

According to Motorola, the tablet will have a Li-ion battery which will last more than 10 hours, if that is true then Motorola Xoom will be the first tablet to outmatch Apple iPad in terms of battery life. And according to Motorola, the “Motorola XOOM device will launch as a 3G/Wi-Fi-enabled device in Q1 2011 with an upgrade to 4G LTE in Q2. Starting in Q2 2011 the Motorola XOOM will be a 4G LTE/Wi-Fi- enabled device.” And Verizon Wireless will be the carrier for the tablet. Also there was no word on the pricing.

RIM on the other hand has announced the arrival of 4G PlayBook which is coming to Sprint on summer 2011. One of the reasons why RIM has opted for using Sprint is because of the Sprint’s 4G network. Sprint was the only 4G network provider for almost two years now with no other player around. But that will change once Verizon and AT&T comes out with 4G network, which have more subscribers standing in at number one and two positions respectively while Sprint being the third.

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook features a 7-inch display (1024 x 600 pixels), the BlackBerry Tablet OS (QNX), 1GHz Cortex-A9 dual core processor, 1GB RAM, a 3 mega-pixel camera and a 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) support, weighs in at 400 g and the tablet is expected to come in 8GB, 16GB,32GB and 64GB. When it comes to battery life, RIM has revealed that the tablet “will last as long as or longer than other 7-inch tablets” that means it may have a 6 hours of battery life similar to Samsung Galaxy Tab, another 7-inch tablet in the market. And the pricing is also not yet revealed, but the company said the tablet will definitely be priced under $500 mark.

Another tablet that has caught the attention of the viewers was Lenovo’s LePad. LePad is expected to act both as a tablet and a laptop. In other words the IdeaPad U1 hybrid is ideally a laptop, but when the laptop screen which is the 'LePad' when taken out acts as a tablet with touch-screen features on it. LePad has a 10.1-inch touch-screen, 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, contains Google's Android 2.2 operating system, 1GB of memory, 16GB/32GB of flash memory, and supports 3G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The tablet has a front-facing camera of 2 mega-pixel and it provides 8 hours of battery life and is available in four colors- White, Brown, Scarlet and Black. LePad’s turning into a laptop version is known as IdeaPad U1. And the tablet weighs around 750 g.

IdeaPad U1 hybrid is created thinking the need of editing content as Lenovo Idea Product Group vice president Liu Jun puts it “Use the light-weight slate when you're mobile, and then simply slide it into the U1 base when you need to create and edit content.” Once when LePad is inserted into the hybrid dock, it becomes IdeaPad U1.

The device is powered by a 1.2 GHz Intel Core i5-540UM, Intel HD integrated graphics, 2GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive and comes pre installed with Windows 7 Home Premium OS. The device also has full keyboard, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, USB,and HDMI ports. Both Lenovo LePad and Lenovo IdeaPad U1 will be available for $520 and $1,300 respectively in China. But the US price is expected to be slightly cheaper.

Last but not least, the Notion Ink Adam is one tablet which supports an Operating System platform of Android, Ubuntu and a Chromium OS. Adam tablet features 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex – A9 MPCore Nvidia Tegra 250 processor, 16 and 32 GB flash memory storage, LP-DDR2/DDR2 667MHz 1GB RAM, 10.1-inch (1024 × 600 pixels) display, 3.2MP Swivel camera, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1+A2DP.

The tablet is expected to offer a battery life of upto 16 hours and 160 hours on backlight off mode, internal rechargeable removable lithium-polymer battery. And the tablet is priced at $375.33 for LCD and WiFi version, $425.33 for LCD, WiFi, and 3G, $499.45 for Pixel Qi and Wifi version and $549.99 for Pixel Qi, Wifi, and 3G versions. And the tablet weighs at 600–650 g.

Here is a comparison of the above mentioned tablets: