Gigabyte to Release Dual-Booting Tablets, Android and Windows

Gigabyte Technology, the Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer is going to start releasing two Android tablets later this year. The larger tablet will be able to run Windows alongside Android OS 3.0(Honeycomb). Gigabyte will also be releasing a tablet that can run Windows 8 next year. Their Senior Vice President, Richard Ma revealed all these plans Wednesday. The names of the tablets have yet to be revealed.

Theses tablets will follow the footsteps of their previous tablet release, the Gigabyte S1080, which runs Windows 7 Home Premium.

Coming in July 2011, One Leading Edge OS, One Not So Much

The new tablets will be released by July, available in 7 inch and 10 inch screen sizes. The 10 inch ones will run Honeycomb, which is optimized for tablets, while the 7 inch will run the  getting-rather-dated Android OS 2.2 (Froyo).

Another Set of Tablets Coming in October

Gigabyte has another line of tablets which should be ready by October, which will also dual boot with Android or Windows 7. This is a great option for users that prefer Windows for specific tasks such as Microsoft Office, and Android for specific tasks, such as browsing away with the Flash-enabled browser and the range of apps available on the Android Market. Gigabyte has not yet decided the Android version they will use for this later line.

Which Processor?

All these tablet models to be released this year will use Intel’s Atom processors and there is no USB option for the ports. Ma said they will sell for less than $400 per tablet but other specifications cannot be released for now.

Hey, What’s This About Windows 8?

Coming back to the Windows 8 tablet, it will be available for sale at the end of 2012 and will most probably feature an ARM processor. “Everyone is hoping that Windows 8 will support ARM,” Ma said.

Would you take a dual- boot tablet over the Motorola XOOM or iPad 2?

Source: PC World