If you listen to some people, they’ll tell you that the tablet is a relatively new phenomenon. That tablets really only became relevant when Apple came forward with the iPad. Well, Motorola begs to differ, and it has come forward with qutie a clever little video of its own to show off the evolution of the tablet.

Yes, the video definitely has a “tongue” in cheek factor going on. The computer animation takes us on a virtual tour of a virtual museum, starting out with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. We’re told that this offered “good graphics, but weight makes for difficult portability.” Through the rest of the video, we visit other stone tablets, like the Rosetta Stone (with “multi-lingual support”). The clever caption on the Mayan engraved tablet gave me a chuckle.

Then, we show up at the iPad (which is “like a giant iPhone) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab (but “Android OS… for a phone), which leads us to the whole reason why Motorola put together this video in the first place. We see a new display at the virtual museum and it’s being set up for a new Motorola device to be unveiled at CES 2011.

Naturally, Motorola isn’t coming forward with too many details at this point, but they’re painfully hinting at Android Honeycomb (which could be Android 3.0 or Android 2.4). Towards the end of the video, we see a CGI bee and the video description on YouTube says that Motorola is “buzzing with excitement.”

I thought the video was fun and clever, but really tells us nothing. Taking a cheap shot of the iPad for being a big iPhone. If this is indeed representative of the tablet evolution, I certainly hope that Motorola brings more to the tablet than just Google’s new OS. How else is it going to separate itself from the endless supply of other Honeycomb tablets to follow?

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Google co-founder Andy Rubin turned heads at All Things Digital’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco this week. During a talk at the conference Andy showed off his baby, the new Android 3.0 OS (aka ‘Honeycomb’). As a double whammy he previewed the OS on Motorola’s prototype tablet, helping the hardware manufacturer jostle for position as they enter the market.

Illustrating the high expectations Google has for the tablet market, Honeycomb appears to be optimized for these mobile devices. From what we’ve seen, Google has been leveraging the extra screen space giving the Honeycomb desktop a sleek redesign, a fancy new app grid and an updated Gmail app.

Motorola’s tablet looks to be button-free and Rubin revealed it will be video-chat capable and packing a NVIDIA processor and a dual core 3D processor. The name is yet to be determined, but it will be on Verizon WIreless and is code-named “Stingray.”

Both are slated to launch sometime in the next year. We’re not sure exactly why both companies need a 365 day window to launch these highly anticipated products, but we’ll wait somewhat patiently and practice our finger crunches in eager anticipation.

Watch Andy play with Honeycomb in the video below.

[Digital Daily]

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He’s only going so far as to say that Motorola will develop an Android tablet “if it is sufficiently compelling” and that they are “hopefully” looking at “early next year.” Yes, they’re being pretty careful with what they have to say. Perhaps they are waiting on a more “tablet optimized” OS? Like Gingerbread. Although they could just as easily make something similar to the Galaxy Tab.

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You know that Acer Android tablet we heard about back in May, well, it has been put on the back burner, for now. If recent rumors are to be believed at least. It was initially intended to launch late this year with Froyo, but apparently that’s not sweet enough for Acer.

They are waiting for Gingerbread (Android 3.0) and expected to ship in early 2011. Something is also in the works with Motorola who plan to launch a Tegra 2 tablet with 10.1-inch Sharp touch panel. It’s going to be about half as bright as the Apple iPad, but way thinner. Motorola is looking to begin production at the end of 2010. Lots of good tablets on the horizon, it will be hard to choose.  2011 will be the year of the tablet.

Acer may delay tablet PC launch for another quarter to wait for Android 3.0 [Digitimes]

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Motorola Droid X Smartphone

Verizon is already becoming a preferred home for many Android smartphones, like the Droid Incredible and Droid X, but it seems that Motorola has another one bound for VZW called the Motorola DROID Pro. This’ll rock a 1.3GHz processor, four-inch touchscreen, and global roaming, quite possibly putting the Droid X to shame. Expect to see this in November.

But wait. There’s more. We’re also hearing that Motorola is working on a “slab form factor” device that’ll be similar to the old Motorola Q, except it’ll have a full touchscreen, Android 2.2, and global roaming. More Android love should be coming by way of Samsung and HTC before the end of the year as well.

Going through the rest of the leaked document, we find a seven-inch Android tablet from Samsung and a 10-inch Android tablet from Motorola, both of which rock front-facing cameras. The Moto is expected to have Android 3.0 Gingerbread under the hood when it hits shelves in February 2011.

We also hear about having 75% of the nation covered in LTE by April 2012, a Novatel LTE MiFi device by February that supports up to 10 simultaneous users, and LTE pricing sticking at $59.99 a month for an unknown amount of bandwidth.

[BGR]

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