Amazon’s Kindle Fire has seen rapid adoption among tablet buyers since its release last November. The device had an explosive debut quarter, giving it a 14% share of the tablet market. According to the latest numbers from comScore, the Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share of the U.S. Android tablet market over the past two months from 29.4% in December to 54.4% in February. In other words, more tablets running Amazon’s version of Android were sold in the U.S. than tablets running Google’...

Intel is expected to move up the announcement of its next-generation Ivy Bridge processors from the original date of April 29th to April 23rd, Digitimes reported on Thursday. ASUS, Acer, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard are all preparing to release their second generation of ultrabooks in May, with average prices expected to “rapidly” drop from $999 to $699. To promote ultrabooks, Intel has also reportedly set up a $300 million fund to assist its partners in ultrabook design as well as research and deve...

The Google-branded Nexus tablet the search giant is rumored to be co-developing with ASUS may be pushed back until July. Earlier reports had the device slated for launch some time in June, with an unveiling possibly set for Google’s annual I/O conference on June 27th. Unnamed sources informed The Verge on Friday that Google pushed back its planned release so it could tweak the device, however. The 7-inch tablet is supposedly equipped with a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich...

When ASUS announced the PadFone at this year’s Mobile World Congress, the company promised the hybrid device would begin shipping in April. Staying true to its world, ASUS on Thursday revealed that pre-orders will begin on Friday and the device will launch on April 20th in Taiwan, Engadget reported. The 4.3-inch Android-powered smartphone will be priced at NT$17,990 ($610) on its own and the dockable tablet and keyboard will cost roughly $240 and $130, respectively, bringing the PadFone’s total co...

Google is planning to market and sell tablets directly to consumers through its own online store, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The paper’s anonymous sources say the search giant hopes the move will turn around the slow adoption rate of its Android-powered tablets. The Mountain View-based company will reportedly look toward its partners such as Samsung and ASUS to manufacture devices for the shop, with the latter creating a Google-branded tablet to be sold in the store later this year....

It is widely believed that Google will entere the tablet market in 2012 with an own-branded 7-inch Android tablet. The search giant has reportedly partnered with ASUS to build a $199 device that will compete against Amazon’s Kindle Fire. These low-cost tablets are expected to have a big impact on the entry-level tablet market and apply pressure to other vendors such as Acer, Lenovo and Samsung Electronics to cut prices, DigiTimes reported on Wednesday. The average gross margin on tablets is roughly 10%...

Google chairman Eric Schmidt started a firestorm when he was quoted saying the company planned to “market a tablet of the highest quality.” Since then, speculation surrounding a Google-branded slate has nearly spiraled out of control. DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim recently fueled the fire, suggesting that a Nexus-branded tablet will enter production in April for an initial run of between 1.5 million and 2 million units. Further reports also suggested that the Mountain View-based company had ...

Samsung, Asus and other Android tablet vendors are reportedly very concerned over rumors that Apple is working on a 7.85-inch version of its iPad tablet, currently referred to as the “iPad mini.” Apple sold more than 15 million post-PC slates in the December quarter last year, and Android tablet makers are said to be concerned that a smaller, cheaper version of Apple’s wildly popular tablet will make it extremely difficult to remain competitive in the space. Moreover, Google is said to be pr...

Speculation surrounding a Google-branded Android tablet is ramping up with a new rumor suggesting that the search giant has partnered with ASUS to release a 7-inch tablet, an Android fan site reported on Monday. The slate is expected to retail for $199 and include a quad-core Tegra 3 processor with a stock version of Android Ice Cream Sandwich. According to the blog, Google was highly impressed with ASUS’ previously announced $249 MeMo tablet. The Mountain View-based company reached out to ASUS to se...

Asus on Monday unveiled the Padfone from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The hybrid device was first announced in May last year, however a bit has changed since the Padfone’s initial announcement at Computex 2011. The unique Padfone tries to capitalize on separating itself from the pack, and is comprised of a 4-3-inch Android 4.0-powered smartphone docked inside a 10-inch tablet. The handset portion of the device features a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, an Adreno 225 graphics proce...

Last week, ASUS announced that the original Eee Pad Transformer would receive an update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the coming weeks, a slight delay from the company’s original claim. The wait is over, however, and the update is currently rolling out over-the-air for Wi-Fi-only Transformers, according to forum members at XDA-Developers. Numerous reports have also indicated that the update is available in the U.K. and Canada as well. (more…)

Apple’s shipments of iPads and MacBooks in the fourth quarter combined to give the Cupertino-based company a 26.6% percent share of the mobile PC market, according to a report from DisplaySearch released on Thursday. Apple shipped a total of 23.4 million units, nearly three times the amount of No.2 HP. The iPad accounted for 18.7 million units and captured 59.1% of the tablet market. Amazon shipped 5.3 million Kindle Fire’s for 16.7% of the market, with Samsung shipping 2.1 million and controllin...

As promised, ASUS has released a bootloader unlocking tool for the Transformer Prime. The tool is packaged in an APK that can be downloaded from the company’s website. Once downloaded and installed, the Transformer Prime will have the ability to run custom ROMS, however ASUS warns that unlocking your bootloader will void your warranty. “Once you activate the [unlock app] you will not be able to recover your ASUS product (“Original Product”) back to original locked conditions,” AS...

Earlier this month, images of the next-generation ASUS Eee Pad Transformer tablet leaked onto the Internet. The slate’s “TF300T” code name was in line with the original naming convention used on the Transformer (TF101) and the Transformer Prime (TF201), indicating it was next in line in the Transformer family. According to a purported screenshot of the tablet’s spec sheet obtained by Polish site Tabletowo, the TF300T is will feature a 1.2GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor with a 10.1-inc...