Sharp just announced today that they have developed a new class of tablets with e-reader functionality entitled Galapagos, for their holiday lineup. Planned for a December 2010 launch in Japan, Sharp has a 5.5 inch and 10.8 inch version.
Sharp has many many different media arrangements in Japan for this launch and both tablets are being billed as pure multi-media. Sharp announced that over 30,000 different newspapers and magazines will be available through the launch.
The 5.5 Inch tablet is dubbed by Sharp as the mobile tablet and has a 5.5-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1,024 × 600 pixels. It will also come in two colors red and black and has a trackball to scroll through pages.
The 10.8 tablet or the “Home Edition” will function much like the Apple iPad, in respects of having a built in accelerometer and you will swipe to turn pages. The resolution on this (1,366 × 800) also beats out the iPad as well, so it will function better to read magazines or full color layouts. This tablet will only be available in the color black.
Both Tablets will have on board WI-FI and will be featuring the Google Android operating system. No word yet on what version of the OS it will have, nor the price.
Here is the Japanese preview video.
Source: Sharp Press Release
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
