Yep, a company called DataWind has just teamed up with the Indian Institute of Technology (Rajasthan) to deliver a tablet aimed Indian students - and it costs a whopping £40. The tablet is called Aakash (meaning sky) and it is subsidised, but apparently does things that most tablets do ie browses the web, takes pictures, allows video conferencing.

It has a 7 inch screen, runs Android 2.2 Froyo operating system, features a 366 MHz processor includes a HD video co-processor and graphic accelerator, and 256 MB of RAM.

The theory is that as high speed wireless broadband is rolled out across the country, the Aakash will give Internet access to students in more rural areas.

The Aakash will be assembled in India, at DataWind's production centre in Hyderabad.

There's a full review of the device here.

Datawind currently has a £99 tablet on sale in the UK in the guise of the UbiSurferTouch

Incidentally the cheapest UK tablet is currently this one - which retails for not much more than £60.

Some interesting stuff from poling company YouGov which has been asking consumers what they think about Tablet PCs. To be fair you can probably guess its main conclusions that 1, The iPad is the tablet most people want. 2, That £250 is the price point at which sales of tablet PC will go stratospheric and 3, The iPad's only serious rival is likely to be the kindle Fire.

"Apple is far and away the current UK market leader in terms of brand awareness, preference and price," says Russell Feldman, Associate Director for Technology and Telecoms Consulting at YouGov. "But the introduction of the Kindle Fire, with its compelling features and even more attractive price, will make it very hard indeed for other players to compete. The Kindle Fire benefits not only on price and specifications, but also in the value and trust consumers have in the Amazon brand. What's more it has the potential to be a major game-changer given the depth of Amazon's downloadable content as well as its burgeoning application store - something that has underpinned consumers' loyalty to Apple over other tablets running an Android OS."

The research doesn't deliver any good news for Apple's rival brands like Samsung, Motorola and Acer. Apparently "72% of "hot prospects" (respondents who are keen to get a tablet) will consider purchasing an iPad2 with a further 61% expecting to get one. However, the next most popular tablets are the out of date iPad1 at 14% followed by the original Samsung Galaxy Tab at 7%. Other competitors fared even worse, with just 3% of "hot prospects" expecting to get a HTC, 3% a BlackBerry and just 1% favouring an Acer."

Feldman added "This is the mountain Android-based tablets need to climb, but by launching a rival ecosystem at an extremely competitive price, Amazon is likely to make a rapid approach to the summit, at the expense not necessarily of Apple, but of its rival Android stable mates."

British teenagers know their Apples
But not the ones you eat! A survey has found that 13- to 18-year-olds don't really know how much staple food items like eggs and a loaf of bread cost, but are bang on when it comes to knowing the cost of Apple gadgets. 80% of those survey knew the exact price of the iPhone4 in 8GB and 16GB writes theguardian.

Britain's cheapest tablets revealed
When it comes to tablets you usually get what you pay for but if you like many others can't justify spending £399 on an Apple iPad you'll be happy to learn there are good devices out there that won't cost you half a month's rent (if you live in London!). ShinyShiny's editor Becca has done the legwork for you and collected five tablets that are available NOW for under £100. Check out the complete list here.

iPhone 5 to be released on 15 October?
From an Orange to an Apple, it could be that the iPhone 5 is to be revealed in about a month's time after Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange's parent company France Telecom, let it slip that October might be it. Cue Apple's iPhone 5 PRs looking for ways to put a gagging order out.

Microsoft shows off Windows 8
Like a proud parent, Microsoft has been showing off the latest build of their Windows 8 operating system this week. If you weren't one of the lucky developers who got a glimpse of the OS's new tricks and features fret not, TechDigest can give you some insight on how to try Windows 8 before its official launch date. Or alternatively visit The Telegraph for some pretty images.

Pentax launches Optio RZ18 18x compact ultra-zoom camera
We love cameras here at ShinyShiny, so are understandably excited each time a new one hits the shelves. This week Pentax has launched a digital camera boasting an 18x optical zoom that fits in your pocket! It is available in black, pearl and orange and will be in-store from mid-October just shy of £200. Click here to find out more about the features.

Google brings voice command to British phones
Here's one for the lazy; British mobile phone users can now speak instructions to their phones with a little help from Google. The search giant has launched 'Voice Commands' that will allow you and I to dictate entire messages or issue instructions such as 'Navigate to' so that phones can show driving directions and behave like satnavs, writes The Telegraph. We only wonder how quickly the novelty will wear off and be taken over by annoyance of people wandering around shouting commands to their phones...

Home phones are losing out to mobile phones
A new study by TalkTalk has found that using the landline has been overtaken by mobiles, but that users still prefer voice calls to social networking. While those aged 25-34 have the most frequent contact with friends and family online, with 40% of the overall population saying the mobile phone was their communication tool of choice.

ASUS U46 laptop sports world's thinnest screen
There's always talk about fashion models being too thin, but can gadgets be too thin? At just 5.5mm thick, the 14-inch screen panel can tilt over the keys at different angles to widen the viewing angle. The notebook has a Sandy Bridge Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. Too techie for you? Yes, I snoozed off when I started talking about processors and RAMs... What would be its competitor in Supersized vs. Superskinny: The Tech Special?

HTC brings out Sensation XE
Looks like HTC is churning out handsets faster than we can type... well handsets. Sensation XE is scheduled to hit shops later this September and boasts a 8MP camera and a front-facing camera for video calls. And to add to the splendour comes with a pair of lush Beats Audio in-ear earphones for listening to those tunes.

Another HTC - this time the leaked images of HTC Rhyme or the HTC Bliss
Aimed at female gadget geeks the Rhyme handset will arrive in a shade of silver and as the name suggests has changed to be a little bit less patronising. The launch event is planned for 20th September so expect more on this next week.

Should mobile phones be banned on public transport?
We've all been there. It doesn't matter what time of day it is or where you are, there is always someone around ready to annoy his or her fellow London commuters with mobile phone. Many of these will be inconsiderate people playing their favourite (non-)music on the speaker - what ever happened to investing in a good pair of headphones? - but then there are those who decide to answer a phone call on the bus, overground and sometimes tube only to continue to talk LOUDLY until you or they get off. If just the mere thought of this makes the anger build up inside, know that you're not alone. A recent study found that more than 22% of commuters would welcome an outright ban on mobile phones on public transport. If this is the right way forward we don't know, but let's get the discussion going.

We all know that you get what you pay for and tablet devices are (usually) no exception to the rule. Most of the time the best models cost the most and unfortunately that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

However, that doesn't mean to say there aren't plenty of cheaper devices out there that aren't quite as powerful but can still do everything you'd expect from a tablet - and I promise there isn't an Apple logo in sight.

Sure there are all kinds of trade-offs for a much smaller price tag, but if you only plan on getting a tablet to scan through your emails, read eBooks and play Angry Birds now and again, then an expensive iPad might not be worth it in the long run anyway.

We've collected together five tablets that are available RIGHT NOW for under £100. You can probably pick one up for much cheaper if you buy from an independent Amazon seller, or have a look on eBay, but those prices are subject to change quickly and plus you can't guarantee what you're REALLY getting some of the time (and you don't want to open up the packaging to find you've bought a wooden iPad now do you).

1. Disgo Tablet 6000 Touch Screen, £63.54 from Amazon

This cheap and cheerful Disgo tablet runs on Android 2.2 and despite being the cheapest in our list it does have everything you'd expect from a basic tablet including access to (limited) apps, games and some basics already installed, a good screen resolution and WiFi capability.

It does seem that you have to sacrifice a few things for the price though, including access to the full Android Marketplace and a fully capable touchscreen. Many online reviews suggest the touchscreen is REALLY frustrating and you literally have to hit it to get any kind of response, which isn't good when you expect a tablet to be all about the tapping, pinching and scrolling.

However, for simple games, watching video and using it as an eReader, it seems to tick all of the boxes despite being so cheap. It also has a 7 inch screen which is perfect for reading, watching and listening on the move while still being super compact.

2. Archos 7 Home Tablet, £74.99 from Carphone Warehouse

The Archos 7 Home Tablet is another tablet with a 7 inch screen, yet it has 8GB of memory, as well as a memory card slot to add even more. This particular model has been dubbed an "entertainment device", which is probably a bit of a stretch, but there's a matt screen which means no glare and fairly decent picture quality to boot, making it ideal for watching video, playing games and reading.

3. Scroll 7" Tablet PC, £94.99 from Storage Options

The Scroll 7" Tablet is part of Storage Options' new range of cute, compact and most importantly affordable devices. It's a really robust Android tablet and boasts a capacitive multi touch screen (the same technology used in the iPhone) and screen tilt functionality, meaning you can switch between landscape and portrait seamlessly like you would with an iPad. Like the other models in the cheaper price range, it doesn't have full access to the Android Marketplace, a fact some people seem to be fine with and others online seem pretty angered by. Again, it's another device that's perfect for watching video, browsing the internet and reading eBooks.

4. Arnova 8 Tablet, £97 from Asda

The Arnova Tablet has an 8 inch screen, making it the biggest of the cheapies. Online reviews suggest it's great for watching video and the HD quality picture is pretty impressive for such a budget device. However, like the Disgo tablet there are far too many reports that the touchscreen just doesn't respond well enough, which makes the whole thing feel clunky in comparison to the slick experience we're used to with the iPad (when we go and play with them in the Apple store that is).

5. Binatone HomeSurf 7 7" Tablet, £99.97 from BestBuy

The Binatone Homesurf 7 7" is a very simple, lightweight tablet device which runs on Android 1.6 and has many of the same cons as the rest of the models on the list really, including no Android Market access and quite a poor resistive screen. Its certainly a capable device when it comes to more basic functions, but it's hardly the best of the bunch despite being (marginally) more expensive.

And the winner is?

Probably the Archos 7 Home Tablet, or the Scroll 7" Tablet PC as they seem to be the best all-rounders.

There are clearly cons with all of the devices and online reviews tend to suggest people are most unhappy with the lack of freedom when it comes to downloading apps and the seemingly unresponsive touchscreens, but for the price you really can't be drawing comparisons to tablets that are nearly six times as expensive.

There's a bit of a surprise over that the FT which is reporting that research organisation
Kantar Worldpanel ComTec, reckons that over a quarter of tablet PC sales are NOT iPads. I must admit I though that Apple's domination of the market would mean that it would have an even bigger slice of the tablet pie. Not so.

In second place is not some no-mark Android cheapie, but rather the Samsung's Galaxy Tab which has around 5.9% of the market.

Apparently more than 3.6m people in the UK now own a tablet, which marks a threefold increase from November 2010.

Kantar also predicts that Apple will dominate the market, but other makers will see some growth. It claims that more than half of potential tablet owners will buy an iPad over the next year, but that 28 per cent of consumers that intend to purchase a tablet in the next year are still undecided about which brand to buy.

Also unsurprising is that most tablets sold have been Wi-Fi only and not 3G. I wonder if that number will change over the coming months as networks began to heavily market 3G tablets with attractive tariffs.

Read the full report here.

Also new from Samsung is this rather curious new product - the GALAXY WiFi 3.6. It is odd because it looks like a mobile phone (it has a 3.6inch screen), has mobile type features and even lets you make voice and phone calls, but it doesn't actually have a SIM slot and just uses Wi-Fi for communication. So basically you can't make calls unless you are in a Wi-Fi zone.

So it is a bit like the iPod touch then? Well kind of in that it packs lots of entertainment features, but this is much more focused on enabling he user to make free voice and video calls.

Here's how the company describes it.

"The GALAXY S WiFi 3.6 is the perfect solution for socially-connected multimediaenthusiasts who are interested in smart on-the-gomultimedia without the expense of a mobile phone contract."

So, on to the features; it packs an ultra-fast 1GHz OMAP processor, runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS, supports a variety of video and audio formats and has a facility called Social Hub which enables the owner to stay in contact through social networking sites.

As for its communication features - users can make voice or video calls over the internet, using platforms such as Google Talk. It also has access to the Android market and to Samsung's dedicated apps.

Its is set top launch in the UK in early October and will be available from retailers including Dixons, Amazon, Littlewoods, HMV and Argos. Prices are 8GB = £149 RRP YP-GS1CW (white) YP-GS1CB (Black). 16GB = £169 RRP YP-GS1EW (white) YP-GS1EB (Black)

It is a big day at IFA in Berlin today with lots of the big consumer electronics unveiling new products. First off is Samsung which has taken the wraps off a slew of new products this morning.

Probably the most high profile is the latest version of its Galaxy Tablet PC - the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. It is a 7inch tablet that can also handle phone and video calls. In many ways it is like a big mobile more than a tablet. It is also very highly specified.

Like all tablet makers it has been looking for a USP to get one over the iPad and this time Samsung has gone for supercharging the screen. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 is the world's first tablet to feature the a Super AMOLED Plus display. The company claims that the Super AMOLED Plus display allows for a wider range of colours with greater separation between lights and darks, making images incredibly vivid.

The tablet's other USP is that it is incredibly thin (7.89mm) and light (335 grams) which apparently makes it even more pocket-friendly.

There are a couple of other iPad busting features on board too in that is also very fast with a state of the art 1.4GHz dual core processor on board and it is compatible with the HSPA+ 21 Mbps mobile phone network (the fastest version of 3G available in Europe) for quicker uploads and downloads.

Other features include 10 hours of video playback battery life,a three mega pixel camera, the latest version of Android - 3.2 Honeycomb OS - on board and support MicroSD cards of up to 32GB, 1080p high definition video playback and access to Samsung's hub services which includes games, eBooks, music and more.

No news yet on price, launch date or whether Apple is thinking about taking out an injunction to stop it going on sale.

Full Specifications are

Display
7.7" [2] 1280x800 (WXGA), Super AMOLED Plus
Processor
1.4GHz Dual Core application processor
Network
HSPA+ 21Mbps 850/900/1900/2100
EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900
Memory
8Gb LPDDR2 (RAM),
16/32/64GB movi NAND + microSD (up to 32GB)
Camera / Flash
3MP AF LED (Main) + 2MP FF (Front)
Wireless Connectivity
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz & 5GHz), 802.11n WiFi Ch. Bonding, WiFi Direct,
BT v3.0, USB 2.0 Host
Audio
MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA
Video
MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, DivX, Xvid (1080p FullHD video @ 30fps)
GPS
A-GPS
Dimension, Weight
196.7x 133 x 7.89mm, 335g
Battery capacity
5,100 mAh
OS
Android Honeycomb 3.2v
Messaging & SNS
Social Hub (Integrated phonebook with SNS, IM, E-mail)
LBS
Google Maps (Turn-by-turn Navi.)
Enterprise Solutions
EAS IT Policy, MDM (Sybase Afaria), VPN (Cisco/F5), ODE (On device encryption), Cisco WebEx
Other Services & Applications
Android Market/ Samsung Apps
Readers/Music/Game/Social Hub (Availability differs by region)
Universal Remote Control
PC Applications
Samsung Kies, Kies Air

Fancy a non-Apple tablet? Well you are spoilt for choice now with the bargain basement HP Touchpad (if you can find one), new-ish models from Motorola and Samsung as well as an upcoming game-changing model from Amazon. Then there's also Toshiba's second roll of the Android tablet dice, the AT100 (AKA the "Thrive" to our US readers) which touches down in the UK tomorrow, September 1st.

It is a Honeycomb (the latest tablet-optimised version of Android) tablet and features a 10.1 inch display, powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor.

Toshiba's Resolution+ image tech and 'innovative sound technology' make it a claimed media powerhouse, with the 765g tablet promising 7 hours of multimedia usage.

"Access to both Toshiba Places and Android Market enables users to access more than 250,000 applications," adds Toshiba.

"Front and back cameras also provide the perfect combination for mobile video chat and high quality still and video photography."

Cheapest models should come in at around £350

Take a quick peek at this video which was on the AllThingsD site earlier today. It was created by the newspaper publisher Knight Ridder to show how one day newspaper content would be displayed on tablet style mobile PCs. If you listen to the commentary you'll find the predictions unerringly accurate.

'Tablets will be a whole new class of computer. They'll weigh under two pounds. They'll be totally portable. They'll have a clarity of screen display comparable to ink on paper. They'll be able to blend text, audio, and graphics together. And they'll be a part of our daily lives around the turn of the century. We may still use the computer to create information, but we'll use the tablet to interact with information, reading, watching, listening.'

So when was the video made 2007? 2002? It actually dates from as far back as 1994. To put that in context, that's before Netscape patented its web browser and probably a lot of time before anyone you knew used email.

The interesting part is that the company predicts that the tablet will be widely used by the end of the last century. As we all know now they were in fact at least a decade out on that one.

So why did it take so long before the tablet finally delivered the newspaper proprietor's dream of content on the go?

Well there are obviously technological reasons, but ironically if you take a closer look most of the breaks on the tech side of tablet production were resolved in the early noughties. Broadband (and Wi-Fi) were becoming available, 3G was establishing itself and Samsung and Sharp were mass manufacturing high resolution LCD screens. Operating systems, storage capacities and even processor power were ready to cope with the demands of tablet PCs by around 2002.

There were of course some attempts to produce tablet style devices. Microsoft had its own Windows tablet operating system as early as 2002 with high profile devices made by companies like Toshiba. These were first class touch screen devices invariably supported by keyboards to enable the user to make full use of the suite of Windows products.

We shouldn't also forget Nokia's very clever and much under-rated 770 tablet device which debuted in 2005. It had a 4inch widescreen display and was optimised to make the most of web based content. Nokia has subsequently launched a series of similar devices like the N800 and N900.

Finally the well heeled early noughties geek almost certainly wouldn't be seen dead without a PDA from Palm, Handspring, HP or a connected phone model, which were sold in the UK by O2 and T-Mobile and branded XDA and MDA.

So the hardware was kind of in place a few years after the guy from Knight Ridder predicted - so why didn't the tablet explosion begin then? I think it is largely down to the publishers not pushing for it. Here's three reasons why the tablet never took off in the mid noughties.

1 Publishing companies didn't want to take their magazines/newspapers online in this way - Much of the iPad gold rush from publishers has been driven by the fact that their print titles are in decline. Ten years ago magazine and newspaper publishing was still delivering very healthy profits. Also blogging was a niche activity and, having been bitten once by investing in websites in the late 90s, mainstream publishers generally were risk adverse when it came to new digital developments. Put simply there was no real reason for them to push for a tablet style device to display their content at that point.

2 It took Apple to make tablet devices sexy - There used to be a very real stigma about touch screen devices. To operate the early models you needed to use a stylus - which was fine - until it disappeared down the back of the sofa. The Microsoft touch screen tablets worked well, but never had an especially good public image. They just didn't capture people's imagination. We shouldn't forget that even prior to the launch of the iPad there were many cynics who said that making a tablet was a strange move. It took Apple's peerless marketing machine to make tablets sexy.

3 Devices were still focused on productivity - Unless you have bought a keyboard for your iPad chances are that you use your tablet almost exclusively to consume content not create it. Microsoft and others in the early noughties had products that enabled users to create content meaning that the devices were seen as productivity tools rather than entertainment ones. Because of this publishers never really had the imagination to think about how their content could be consumed on tablets.

Ok, so by the time the iPad launched in 2010 quality components were cheap enough to enable Apple to offer the device at a competitive price. The iPad also had the advantage of the iPhone app store already being established and developments in cloud computing which meant that users could stream content rather than having to house it all on the device's meagre storage. However I do think that had publishers pushed for a new format we could have seen iPad style tablet devices as long ago as 2003-2004.

The entire Playboy back catalogue is now available on the iPad. That's right, every playmate, every article and every vintage ad from the magazine's 57 year long history can be viewed on your very own iPad, for $8 a month.

Apple doesn't allow porn in the App Store, but Playboy is getting around this by offering the content as "optimised for iPad".

The "iPlayboy" was hailed by the company as the "world's sexiest time machine", but the question now is whether people will be willing to pay for this. After all, the reason Playboy has launched this in the first place is likely due to flagging magazine sales in the internet age.

The company said the service is indented to appeal to a "sense of collective nostalgia and affinity" - a euphemism perhaps, but then again old ads are hilarious so they may be on to something ... ?

[via The Register]

We could have guessed that people with iPads or other tablets would spend less time on their desktops and laptop computers, but the actual figures, as compiled by Nielson show just what an impact iPads are having on PC use.

A third of tablet computer owners now spend less time using their other computer. That's a very significant whack.

Nielson reported that 35% of new tablet owners said they used their desktop PC less, with 3% now not using it at all. And 32% of laptop owners used their laptops less as result of their new tablet.

Netbooks and portable media players took a hit too. See the chart below..

It seems that PC sales have started to fall slightly as well - by 2.3% in the last three months. A dip blamed on tablets too.

Of course tablets are very far from replacing tablets or desktops. While browsing and video watching can be easily done on a tablet, there's a lot of stuff that can't - mainly stuff which involves a lot of typing. It's still not a replacement.

And lets note that having a tablet actually made 13% of people use their laptop even more. I wonder why? Are they spending all that extra time syncing their iPads to iTunes?

[Nielson, via Gigaom]

[photo shows 3-screen lifestyle, from bas boerman and chart - nielson]

When looking at the app of a magazine or paper, it's sometimes hard to separate the quality of the content from the quality of the format. And that's a good thing. Ideally, you shouldn't notice the format at all because it's so intuitive that it unobtrusively lets the content shine.

But when reviewing it, you have to poke around and look at this stuff closely. So I've been putting the FT's Android app through its paces.

The FT have just made a stab at reproducing their newspaper content in an Android app, just under a year after they launched their iPad app. I tested it out on the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Their iPad app won an Apple Design Award in 2010. The panel said:
"Offering a really great newspaper reading experience on iPad, the Financial Times presents an elegant user interface with animation, shadows, transparency, off-white paper color, nice typography, and intuitive navigation. Integrated photos and video nicely augment printed content."

Does the Android one stand up to that? We explored.

The Android app comes bundled with a Standard digital subscription at £4.49 per week or a Premium online subscription £6.49 per week (£233 or £337 per year).

Putting lengthy and serious articles on a 7 inch tablet
Just like the paper version of the FT - it's a lengthy, serious read. And the length of the articles is accommodated by long scroll-down pages and clean single column of pleasant lightly-serifed text - it shows up cleanly on the off-white of the page.

There are no bells and whistles Wired-style here - no interactive graphs of markets data or globes that spin round or anything. It's all a bit more low-key. This means they avoided gimmicks but also possibly missed out on some opportunities for a wow-factor.

The Front Page
The front page is the home page and the hub of the whole experience.. The front page worked very well, but I found going deeper to be a little bit less intuitive. The menu for different sections was a line of grey boxes at the top - that you open up by clicking on a small lined box in the top right-hand corner. Not the most intuitive or attractive lead-on to further stories..

Visuals and Multimedia
Videos were forefronted on the main page, which was great, though the quality was a little hazy despite being on a full wifi connection.. Given the nice screens on these tablet devices, video really could be - and should be excellent.

With the pictures - again the visuals were a little lacking here. There were nice photos attached to stories, but they never get any bigger than thumbnails. On stories in the fashion or arts section for example it would great to have galleries and pictures that blew up to the full frame.

A couple of gripes
1) Landscape mode didn't work. This was a gripe for me. At first I didn't notice, because it is easy to read in portrait mode, but once I had, I kept wanting to turn it round. This was particularly the case after watching a video which automatically displayed in landscape.

2) Comment functionality would be nice too.. as would sharing. There is some link to Google on the top left of individual article pages, but a quick way to grab a link would be nice - even if only for personal reference. Paywalls inhibit the sharing of stories to Facebook and Twitter of course.

3) This is a paid-for subscription app, so I really didn't see why there should be a little strip ad at the bottom of pages. Sure it isn't very big, but it took up screen real estate and occasionally covered up useful links.

Conclusion
A nice app that does a functional job and was clear and pleasant to read. It didn't really have a tablet wow-factor for me, but they probably just want to leave that to the content in line with the FT's character. Visuals should be improved and perhaps that top menu bar too. Certainly riding at over £200 a year you'd expect a really premium experience and so the pictures and videos as well as the text need to be top notch.

But tablets are great for reading long denser articles and the FT is full of valuable long dense articles.

It really comes down to the money - do you want to spend £233 a year on one paper? If you do, and have an Android tablet, well this is a nice additional way to read it.

A subscription to the FT app costs £233 or £337 per year and is available on Android Marketplace

They're here - and one of them is cheaper than the iPad 2. Asus demoed their dinky Android Transformer tablet and their Windows Slate today and the Transformer by itself comes in £20 cheaper than iPad 2.

iPad 2 costs £399, the Transformer (without the keyboard) is going for £379. With the keyboard the Transformer is £425.

The Slate - running Windows 7 is basically a desktop replacement and the enormous price - £999 reflects the huge i5 chip inside and large screen.

Both are in stores from 6th April and available for pre-order from midnight tonight - Asus.com.

First impressions from our hands-on on the way..

Asus's large 12.1 inch Windows 7 tablet will be out in the UK from April - a matter of weeks. Designed for power users it has a great Intel i5 dual-core chip and and a large back-lit LED diplay.

Like all Asus tablets, you can use either your fingers or a stylus on the touchscreen, it comes with an external Bluetooth keyboard for text input too. It will carry all Microsoft office apps on it and supports Flash and can multitask.

The selling point of this tablet is really the connection with Microsoft - and as such it really gears itself towards the business user - someone who might want to edit a power point presentation on the go.

We imagine the price will reflect that when it's announced.

One qualm: I'm still not convinced by the form factor - 12.1 inches is big and certainly not going to fit into your handbag/man bag.

Specs:
Intel® Core™ i5 dual-core processor,
12.1" LED-backlit display with a 1280 x 800 resolution and a wide 178° viewing angle,.
available with 32GB or 64GB of SSD storage (expandable via SDXC)
up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM
2-megapixel camera
two USB 2.0 ports
mini-HDMI port

The tablet of the week is likely to be the iPad 2 launching on Wednesday, but Asus - makers of dinky netbooks like the Eee PC - gave us all a closer look at their Eee tablet offerings at CeBit in today.

There are four: the Eee MeMO, Eee Transformer, Eee Slider and Eee Slate EP121. They come in three screen sizes - from the smallest 7 inch MeMO to the hefty 12.1 inch Slate and the Transformer and the Slider at 10.1".

We look at the Windows 7 Slate in a separate post but my favourite is the small MeMO - it's on Android Honeycomb 3.0 - the operating system optimised for tablets and packs front and back-facing cameras (1.5 and 5 megapixels respectively) and an impressive chip - a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon. I think something about that form factor appeals to me. That and the seriously powerful chip. It's out in the UK from July..

In the middle, are the inventive Eee Pads - the Eee Pad Transformer (above) and the Eee Pad Slider (below) - at 10.1 inches these take on the 9.7 inch iPad directly and both run Android Honeycomb as well. These pack incredible chips - real power monsters - the NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2, the world's most advanced mobile processor with a dual-core CPU and NVIDIA® GeForce® GPU. I get a warm fuzzy feeling just writing about it.

The Slider comes with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, the Transformer can be clipped into a separate keyboard. In other differences, the Slider comes with a helpful 3G mobile port allowing for internet access on the go.

UK pricing has yet to be confirmed but we have this information on the release dates:

The Eee Pad Transformer and Slider will be available in the UK around mid April, whilst the Eee MeMO is expected in early Q3, July..

It was supposed to be the super smart challenger to iPhone's iOS operating system and Google's Android operating system, but Nokia have just dumped their high-end operating system Meego.

We hadn't heard much about the system for months so it's not a massive shock to hear that the joint project between Nokia and Intel has failed.

But it is a surprise that two of tech's biggest players couldn't get a product together for one of hottest new areas - mobile and tablet computing.

A sign of the times. And presumably only one of the announcements that will follow Nokia CEO's burning platform comment of yesterday... see: Four reasons why the world's biggest phone maker is in crisis: Crunch time for Nokia

Shooting in right at the top of the hotly contested tablet PC category, the Motorola Xoom is a tablet to look out for and offers some strong competition to the iPad and the Galaxy Tab.

It's built on top of Google Android's Honeycomb operating system, specially designed for tablets and cuts a

Larger than both the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the iPad the 10.1-inch Xoom from Motorola it also packs a lot of the hardware features that the Apple gadget lacks - cameras for example. It has a 5megapixel back camera with flash, and a front-facing 2megapixel one for video chat. Nice.

It runs on a dual-core 1GHz processor and will ship with a 3G radio for wireless broadband to start, but can be upgraded to 4G Long Term Evolution through a hardware modem swap later this year.

No pricing or dates as yet...

With hundreds of tablets unleashed onto the public at CES, from powerhorses that are practically just desktop computers with the keyboard cut off to things that are glorified mobile phones, I just thought I'd take some time to tell the tech industry, what I, a keen consumer want from a tablet. And what I don't want from a tablet.

The Ten Things I Want from a Tablet by A Consumer (Me)

1) I have a laptop thank you
And it's a real pain to lug around, so I don't want another 3kg to carry about, I want something that is going to be significantly more convenient, that I can drop into my bag without a second thought.

2) I also have a phone thanks
You have to offer me something a bit more than just a phone with a large screen. Probably

3) I'm not going to be using Photoshop or Microsoft Word on my tablet
To reiterate, I have a laptop computer, so I'm more likely to be using this tablet thing in transit or while I'm lying on the sofa and can't be bothered to go over to the desk. It's going to be for sketches or notes not complex photo editing or fully-fledged thousand word documents.

4) I will be using it to communicate. 3G internet is a must (4G even better)
And that means 3G. Or possibly 4G.

5) Media playing must be good
This is going to be an entertainment device, filling in the boring gaps while I wait for trains, tide myself over commercial breaks and sit in the bus. So I want the entertainment factor to be good.

6) I'd like to be able to afford it
I'm prepared to shell out for technology, I love this stuff! But this is going to have to be on the right side of £200 to get me interested. Otherwise a nice data package is ideal - £15 a month is fine. Even better if it can be tied into some kind of deal

7) I want apps & games and I'm prepared to pay (a bit) for them
I love apps and that Android app store is a winner as far as the current crop of tables is concerned.

8) I want to be able to Skype my mum
That means a forward-facing camera. I don't want this to be lower-specced than my iPhone for goodness sake.

9) I want it to be compatible with my other gadgets. And not just a bluetooth keyboard.
Whether that's being able to view videos and pictures on the TV or sending music wirelessly to my existing speakers, this is going to be very important, and in an ideal world there would be standards allowing for this across different manufacturers.

10) Battery life
Lots of it. I already have to plan my life around making sure my iPhone has enough charge. I'd just like it to last a day on one charge easy, two days would be great.

That's all. Thanks very much.

We knew tablets were coming this year at CES and ASUS - the makers of dinky little netbook the Eee PC - have been quick off the mark in getting their tablets out. Smallest is the handheld 7" Eee Pad MeMo, the Eee Slider and Eee Transformer are both 10.1" and stand out for incorporating QWERTY keyboards like a netbook. The large 12" Eee Slate comes with a stylus and can have a keyboard attached.

The Eee Pad MeMo has a 7 inch capacitive touch screen, runs off the Qualcomm Snapdragon chip that powers many of the fancy smartphones around at the minute and will pack Android Honeycomb - the operating system Google built specially for tablet computers. They say: "featuring HD playback capabilities, mobile gaming, an exciting Web experience and is accompanied by a stylus pen for taking handwritten notes."

We really like the sound of this.

Moving up the size spectrum is the Eee Pad Slider and Eee Pad Transformer at 10.1 inches which both pack NVIDIA chips and also run Android Honeycomb.

They have a Windows 7 device too.. a large 12" inch touchscreen tablet with an Intel i5 processor inside - the sort of chip you'd find in a laptop. This is a bit of a powerhouse tablet, Asus claim that the Eee Slate EP121 is "the most powerful tablet ever introduced" and promise that it allows the user to run a variety of desktop applications on its 64GB SSD drive while offering various data input options ranging from a Wacom Digitizer pen to an included Bluetooth wireless keyboard for ultimate user flexibility.

Jonney Shih, CEO of the Japanese company announced they had picked up eight CES Innovation Awards.

browse through some snaps of the tablets below..

See more: Asus CES website

Fans of the tablet computer have a lot to enjoy in this year's IFA offerings. The strongest contender in the field is the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but Toshiba's Folio 100 mobile device is pretty interesting too.

Folio's trump card here is the Android OS - Android 2.2 aka Freyo. That means a lot of apps and features and speedy operation. Flash, multitasking and a full suite of

With a 10.1 inch screen it's just a shade bigger than the iPad's 9.7 inch one though the battery life (7hrs) is shorter than that of Apple's Fondle Slab (10hrs).

Where the Samsung Galaxy Tab is almost more personal organiser, the Folio is plonk in the middle of Apple's territory - marketed as a multimedia device. And it has a lot of the hardware that Apple didn't put in iPad: an SD card slot, HDMI connector and a USB 2.0 slot, and an integrated 1.3MP front-facing webcam making video-chat simple.

A Mobile Broadband model with 3G support will also be launched later in the year. It comes with 16gb of storage but that's expandable up to 32gb with the SD card. Video calls (over wifi or 3G) will be provided by Skype rival Fring).

It's still expensive but is a good £100 cheaper than the iPad (£429).

The Toshiba FOLIO 100 will be available in the UK from October 2010 for £329 inc VAT (non-3G).