MWC 2011: Toshiba Brings Out New Tablet

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Those of you who can’t get enough out of Toshiba will be plenty happy about the recent announcement of a new tablet out at the Mobile World Congress show. While the tablet in question hasn’t been named yet, an unusual development, we do have some specs on the tablet, as well as a vague sort of release date.

For those concerned that it might be just another Folio 100, as pictured above, staring us in the face, you’ll be happy to know that this one’s going to have some punch in it. What we know so far is that it’s going to be a ten inch tablet displaying at 1280 x 800 resolution, and packing a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, a front and rear camera (one for pictures and video, the other for video chatting), a series of light sensors to adjust the display according to the amount of ambient light in the room, an HDMI port to route your images outward onto bigger screens, and an accelerometer.

So definitely, this one will have a lot more punch in it than the Folio 100 will, proving that more and more companies are taking this whole tablet PC game a lot more seriously than they did in the past. I find myself unconvinced, however, by those folks who advance the idea that somehow tablets will take over for laptops–I don’t think they have near the juice to do that–but there is a growing number of people who find them useful as media players and the like, and that’s a definite possibility for these devices.

Regardless, they’re getting stronger, and heading out in greater numbers. This one, meanwhile, is set for release somewhere in the third quarter of this year, though since the tablet doesn’t even have a name yet, there’s a fair likelihood that will get shifted back a couple times before it’s all said and done. But it will have to be a tough little unit, given that about that time it will have to go toe to toe with the iPad 2 and the Blackberry PlayBook, among others. Will it survive the onslaught? Only time will tell, but I give this one a pretty good chance.