Android Tablet Market Share on the Rise

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halcyon

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About a month ago I was looking for a decent Android tablet and settled on the Transformer Pad Infinity. ...not a bad device and has already updated to JellyBean.

IME its not quite as polished as iOS and some of my favorite apps aren't on Android yet but its getting there. I think all new Android tablets should have at least 2GB of RAM for a smooth experience...but they're getting there.
 

halcyon

Splendid
[citation][nom]juanc[/nom]Maybe because all those people returning iPads?[/citation]
For a lot of people an iPad is the perfect tablet. iOS is smooth and has the largest base of quality apps IMO. I really like the customization of Android though. If the experience can get smoothed out and if my favorite games were available I'd be completely satisfied.
 
[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]Word of advice, if you see numbers being mixed (total devices vs tablets) an matched like this they're total BS. They have no clue what's going on.[/citation]
Read the first paragraph again. It's not about Android devices, it's about " tablets running on Google's Android mobile operating system". Not total devices, just tablets running Android OS, also known as Android tablets.
Got it now?
 

aicom

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[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]Lets readdress this after Christmas cause I think Microsoft Surface RT has the potential to shake the market up.[/citation]
Indeed. Apple is going to have a tough year in 2013. The 10-inch iPad is going to pressured by WinRT and Clovertrail x86 tablets with much greater functionality. The iPad mini is getting the squeeze by the Nexus 10 and Nexus 7 with more capabilities for less cost. Meanwhile, Android continues to erode iOS marketshare in smartphones.
 

wildkitten

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Two reasons for this in my opinion. One, Android is maturing and the fragmentation on Android phones doesn't seem as prevalent on the tablets, and two, a lot of Android tablets have one key feature an iPad doesn't have...and SD slot.

A lot of people are not fans of the cloud. The reason I bought the Asus Transformer T300t was because it had a good SoC and an SD slot. While the retina display is an extremely good display and the best on the market, the display on the Asus is very good as well, and if I can't have the content on my tablet I need and want, then the display doesn't really matter.

This is where I think Google is making a huge mistake with the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 7. Yes, the Nexus 7 has sold well thus far, but the few people I know with one, their biggest complaint has been lack of the SD slot. The Nexus 4 will likely be a successful phone, but I think it's lack of an SD slot may very well cause it not to sell as well as it otherwise would simply because Google wants to push it's cloud services.
 

wildkitten

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[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]Lets readdress this after Christmas cause I think Microsoft Surface RT has the potential to shake the market up.[/citation]
The Surface tablet will likely be successful in business and anyplace where people need a seamless environment between the tablet and their PC. However, I believe MS missed a golden oppurtunity to really get the Surface seriously into the market by pricing it as high as they did. I waited to buy my tablet until I learned of the surfaces price point and it's near laptop prices pushed me away, and I don't think I will be alone in that.

If I was MS I would have taken a similar approach to the Surface as they do the Xbox. Line up serious app support, get Surface versions of all the most popular and best apps, sell the hardware even at cost or even a slight loss and make it up on the software side.
 

killerclick

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[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]Lets readdress this after Christmas cause I think Microsoft Surface RT has the potential to shake the market up.[/citation]

If Surface sells well, it's more likely to cannibalize some of Windows laptop sales than take a chunk out of Android or even less likely iPad. Who's going to buy a Surface and a 11" or 13" laptop, especially if what they do with them is browse the web, use Office and play casual games?
 

ddpruitt

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[citation][nom]house70[/nom]Read the first paragraph again. It's not about Android devices, it's about " tablets running on Google's Android mobile operating system". Not total devices, just tablets running Android OS, also known as Android tablets.Got it now?[/citation]

No what it say precisely is:
tablets running on Google's Android mobile operating system now account for over four out of every ten devices shipped to consumers.

It starts as tablets and then switches to a much broader "devices".

Reading is one thing, comprehension is another.
 

InvalidError

Titan
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[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]a lot of Android tablets have one key feature an iPad doesn't have...and SD slot.[/citation]
There is also a feature that iPads have but most Android phones/tablets don't: a $600 price tag.

That's the main feature that convinced me to give the Nexus7 a shot.

The N7 really could have used an SD-card slot, micro-HDMI and 2GB RAM at least on the 16GB version which carried a large enough premium over the 8GB model to cover those extras.
 

del35

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Morons can wake up! It was about time some iTards embraced technological civilization instead of the shiny irreparable mediocre overpriced Apple crap.
 
G

Guest

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[This is where I think Google is making a huge mistake with the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 7. Yes, the Nexus 7 has sold well thus far, but the few people I know with one, their biggest complaint has been lack of the SD slot. The Nexus 4 will likely be a successful phone, but I think it's lack of an SD slot may very well cause it not to sell as well as it otherwise would simply because Google wants to push it's cloud services.]

Google intentionally not putting a microSD slot in the Nexus 7 and 10 because if they do, they will cannibalize the market of Samsung, Asus etc. They want to promote greater adoption of Android tablets but yet has to make room for the other partners to sell their tablets, so they made the choice of selling cheap but removing important features.

Meanwhile, Microsoft made the decision to sell expensive but include all the features in their RT tablet. But I seriously think that's a good strategy, especially the offering from their partners is not really that interesting as well. But then again, I always think the x86 tablets is where most people are interested in anyway.
 

kronos_cornelius

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The nexus 7 is great for casual computer use (email, browser).

I hope Samsung gets it right with the Galaxy Note Table next time around. The current model is a promising prototype but nothing I would buy.
 

edgewood112358

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[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]No what it say precisely is:It starts as tablets and then switches to a much broader "devices".Reading is one thing, comprehension is another.[/citation]

I can't tell if your trolling or not... but lets use some common sense:

In one quarter of 2012 153.9 million smartphones were sold, according to the IDC.

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/wireless-mobile/smartphone-statistics.htm

In the same time frame (roughly) 14 million ipads were sold

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/apple-ceo-tim-cook-ipad-mini-not-a-compromised-product-like-7-inch-tablets/

and since the ipad accounts for about 60% of the market, and android for 40% (at the time) that means 9.3 million android tablets were sold.

Last I checked 4 in 10 of 153.9 was not 9.3...
 

ronindaosohei

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This year will see the start of some real competition for Apple in the tablet space but not really threaten them. The thing you have to keep in mind is yes, Android sales grew a lot in the last year and that's important to driving app development because there are lots of users out there, but they didn't compete on even footing because the Android devices that sold did so for half the price. Apple is fighting back with the iPad mini, which is a fairly smart move to protect their market space and make it tougher for Google (as well as Microsoft to an extent) but this coming year will be the first time Apple will face real competition at the higher end.

Think of it as the parallel of the year the Samsung Galaxy S2 was released and this past year as the year the Galaxy S1 was released. The year the Galaxy S1 was released was the first time Apple was really challenged in the smartphone space with the EVO 4G, Droid Incredible, Droid X, and Galaxy S1 but Apple was still ahead. The next year the Galaxy S2 came out and for a time had some noteworthy advantages over the iPhone, even by the end of the year it had some strong differentiators but still wasn't definitively better. Finally, the Galaxy S3 came out and was definitively better and has remained so.

In the tablet equivalent we're just entering the Galaxy S2 year, we've got a year of Apple facing some real competition that isn't definitively better but has some definitive advantages over the iPad, for the first time there's a real reason to consider the competition aside from just price. This won't beat Apple, it will create some solid awareness for the competitors, which is a great start, both the Android and Windows tablets will get some limelight (Microsoft on the higher end, Android on the lower end to squeeze Apple respectively), but it won't be till the next year that we'll really see Apple pushed to the point where the iPad has a definitive rival, in other words we'll look back Fall of 2014 and see Apple really having been squeezed and beaten out by a few devices, which is when the tides will really turn as suddenly Apple is forced to play catch-up, which they won't have had to do in the tablet space until then.

For Windows Phone the road is slower and more bleak, Microsoft won't see major success until Windows Phone 10, this version will do better than the last, the Lumia 920 will probably triple the sales of the Lumia 900 but compared to overall market sales that's still a low number. Windows Phone 9 will finally put Microsoft on par overall with the competition and ahead in a few areas while behind in a few areas. That will finally drive adoption and awareness leveraged by the high end tablet success they'll have (on the high end Microsoft's value proposition beats everyone else, so does their price point but for people who want serious tablets Microsoft is the only way to go and that will threaten Apple's $800 range models) and adoption of Windows 8. If they are smart they'll have leveraged the Xbox 720 or whatever it's called as well. That'll be the first real market break for Microsoft a bit like when the mass market started to discover Samsung on the Galaxy S2, then the real success will come with Windows Phone 10 when they've got that initial momentum, critical mass, and finally a problem with distinctive advantages over Apple (so long as they can say the same about Android).
 

bluekoala

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Here's my opinion on all of this:

x86 tablets have been out for roughly a decade. I supported them while working for HP.
They never were interesting and never will be.
Windows is quickly starting to lose its relevance and Microsoft knows it; and by struggling to lock down it's "market share" it's alienating its userbase and strong pillars of their ecosystem.
Home Desktop computers and parts will also become more and more of a niche market, like the iPad recently was.
The popularity of linux of the desktop will steadily increase as the mainstream users will be shoved into alternate gadgets to fulfill their computing needs. Leaving only hobbyists to use Windows on their PC's like it's an awkward distribution of Linux. Microsoft will abandon the home desktop completely to push other surface gadgets such as tables, walls, projection watches, gaming consoles, useless crap integrated in appliances and cars.

The days of having a screen separate from tower in your home will not end abruptly, but will fade away more and more until desktop PC's are going to be likened to what we liken the PC case that has a turbo button. Some people still have them, some people still use them; with dot matrix printers. Why not use a typewriter while you're at it? Boy, time flies. "I would've known this already, if only I weren't so young"
 
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