Around the Web - Tablet news and Sandy Bridge flaw

CNET citing, statistics from market-research firm Strategy Analytics, reported that a rag tag of Android-based tablets captured a 21.6 percent share of the tablet market in the fourth quarter of 2010, up from 2.3 percent in the third quarter of 2010. Apple's tablet captured 75.3 percent of worldwide market share, down from the third quarter when Apple had 95.5 percent share and Android had just 2.3 percent. 

Since Google did not officially support Android 2.x on a tablet most major manufacturers did not come out with Android tablets in 2010. Dell had came out with its Streak and Samsung released its Galaxy Tab, with the remainder coming from second and third their manufacturers. Android 3.0 should be out in a two days, so we will be seeing more Android based tablets shortly.

About 17 million tablets were shipped in 2010, and about 44 million are expected to be shipped this year. 

Despite the large size of the tablet market, the Geek.com reports that RIM is reportedly only producing 150,000 to 200,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, or between 1.8 million to 2.4 million per year. RIM appears to be targeting just 5% of the tablet market for 2011.

The BlackBerry PlayBook right now appears to really be needed to be tethered to a BlackBerry phone to be fully functional. Given that BlackBerry sells 14 million smartphones per quarter, the 450,000-600,000 PlayBooks to be produced per quarter seems to be rather small. If you want one,  expect to have a hard time getting one.

Intel revealed a design flaw, which is found in the company's recently released Intel 6-series "Cougar Point" chipset, that could cause the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipset to degrade over time.  The flaw has forced the chipmaker to stop shipments of a chipset, though Intel also announced that it has a design fix in place. Intel expects the cost of repair and replacement to be around $700 million, forcing it to cut its sales forecast for the first quarter by $300 million. You can read more about this at CNET.

Posted in: Tablets,Thin-and-Light Laptops (4-5lbs.),Ultraportables (under 4lbs.)