It's raining tablets

IF 2010 was the year of iPad, this year could be the year of tablet war.

The recently-concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, US, showed that majority of the consumer electronic product players are banking on tablets and touch-screen technologies to drive their products in the ever-competitive consumer electronics market.

Market research company Gartner expects tablet PC sales this year to shoot the roof with triple sales from 2010, while technology research firm Yankee Group estimated that tablet sales will grow from 21 million in 2010 to 168 million in 2014. Apple, which is now enjoying huge success with its iPad, still have the pole position in this war being the first to really come out with real tablet, but competitions are just seconds behind it.

The sleek A4-sized tablet of joy is now faced with more than 50 competitors knocking at its door wanting a piece of the market share. At CES 2011 alone, easily 50 PCs were announced, signalling huge competition ahead. Companies like Samsung, LG, Motorola, Asus, Lenovo, Fujitsu, RIM, Dell and Sharp have shown that they are ready for the tablet war with their own versions of the devices, expected to hit the market this year.

And many of these tablet PCs are expected to run on Google's latest Android 3.0 operating system, also known as Honeycomb. Apple, although didn't make any appeareance at CES 2011, has been rumoured to come out with iPad 2 this year. This could futher add the heat to the already hot market.