Dell confirms Android-powered tablet device
CES 2010: New slate-like 5-incher shown off — Dell has teased with a new tablet/slate PC at its keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas.? — Giving virtually no details, as per usual with Dell's teasers, the new device will get a 5-inch screen size and be Android powered.?
Context & Ripple Effects
Dell has form with this category and nothing shipped: it floated a Tablet PC back in May 2007, following earlier rumor detail that surfaced on Dell's own blog, and neither produced a product on stage until now. The difference this time is the OS — a 5-inch Android slate shown at its CES keynote rather than a Windows Tablet PC concept.
The timing matters because Android is no longer just a phone OS: a survey days before CES found it finally roiling the smartphone market after a slow start, and Notion Ink showed a Tegra-based Android smartpad with a Pixel Qi display at CES in December 2009. Dell confirming an Android-powered device puts one of the largest PC makers on that same trajectory.
First-order effects
- Dell commits a flagship CES slot to a non-Windows, non-PC device category, signaling internally that its slate ambitions have moved from the 2007-era Windows Tablet PC track to Android.
Second-order effects
- Every major PC OEM now faces the same choice Dell made: bring Android into screen sizes above the phone, or cede the small-slate segment to smaller entrants like Notion Ink that moved first.
Third-order effects
- If PC makers keep adopting Android for slates, Google's open-source model becomes the default OS layer across consumer device categories — despite the criticism in late 2009 that the Android open source model had suffered a fundamental flaw.
The trend: Android is expanding from smartphones into dedicated tablet and slate hardware, with large PC OEMs like Dell validating the shift at industry showcases like CES.