An interesting notion
As expected, the year of the notebook's latter half is set to be dominated by Android. Joining the likes of Samsung and ASUS is Indian start-up Notion Ink, which is bringing some novel features to a market that's filling-up rapidly.
The Notion Ink tablet - to be called Adam - will combine Android with an NVIDIA Tegra SoC. On top of that it will be using the Pixel Qi transflective display, which appears to combine the qualities of a traditional LCD with reflective technologies similar to Qualcomm's Mirasol. It also has a rear touchpad and a 180-degree swivel camera.
Founder Rohan Shravan blogged last week in an attempt to add some substance to the rumours surrounding his product. Regarding when it will be released, he could only reveal: "The product will shoot for FCC certifications in the second week of November. And then it depends on them." So he's hoping to be able to deliver something this year, but we won't be holding our breath.
Regarding price, Shravan was able to be more specific. "Currently we will ship LCD and PQ Variants," he said. "Both available in Wi-fi only and 3G modes. I believe you will get a range of around $399 to $498 for these four." $399 is a decent amount cheaper than the cheapest iPad, but whether that will be enough to persuade people to choose a complete unknown over the world's biggest tech company is far established.
Added to the many challenges already facing Notion Ink is the concession from Shravan that he doesn't think there is much profit in making hardware, and that the Adam will need a massive ecosystem of developers if he hopes to make any money out of it. This looks like a good time to be a mobile app developer, or is it?
