08/14, 6:33am
Acer updates Inconia Tab A110 ahead of launch.
The Acer Iconia Tab A110 has popped up at an online retailer's website sporting Android 4.1 'Jelly Bean.' When the device first surfaced ahead of its launch, it was running Android 4.0. While that is good news for 7-inch Android buyers looking for a 'Jelly Bean' alternative to the Google Nexus 7, it also suggests that the transition from Android 4.0 to Android 4.1 is not as big a leap as it was for OEM's trying to upgrade devices from Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).
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06/13, 8:00am
10.1-inch tablet sports 1080p, Tegra 3 quad-core
Acer announced today that the new Acer Iconia Tab A700 is now available for pre-sale in the United States and Canada. The 10.1-inch tablet features a "Full HD" screen and long battery life, as well as a variety of output ports. Notably, the A700 manages to undercut a comparably-equipped Apple iPad on price.
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05/23, 1:37pm
Olympic edition of Acer tablet decorated with Olympic rings
The Acer Iconia A510 Olympic tablet will be reaching the UK in June through Carphone Warehouse. The special-edition tablet shares the specs of the Iconia Tab A510, with the main differences being an engraving of the Olympic rings on the back and a pre-loaded trial of Eurosport Player, to watch the broadcaster's Olympic coverage.
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04/26, 3:55pm
comScore shows Kindle Fire propping up Android
Amazon's Kindle Fire now makes up the absolute majority of the Android tablet platform in the US, comScore found in a fresh study. The e-reader and tablet crossover represented 54.4 percent of all Android tablets sold in the country. At second place, the entire Samsung Galaxy Tab lineup comprised just 15.4 percent of Android slates.
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04/25, 7:25pm
OTA update arrives ahead of schedule
Android 4.0 has arrived just a couple of days earlier than previously billed for Acer's Iconia Tab A500, according to reports from Android Central. The OS update had been scheduled to arrive April 27.
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04/17, 10:10pm
Acer ships Iconia Tab A510 to Americans
Following a formal US launch late last month, Acer has started selling the Iconia Tab A510 in the US. The Android 4.0 tablet is currently in stock from Acer, and presumably resellers, at its quoted $450 price for a 32GB Wi-Fi model. Buying from Acer itself gets the Olympic Game Edition, which has the competition's logo on the back but is otherwise similar to the reference design.
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03/29, 4:15pm
New Hulu Plus app arrives on 7 Android tablets
Streaming TV show and movie provider Hulu on Thursday announced it has made its Hulu Plus service on seven new Android tablets. This includes the Acer Iconia Tab line, ASUS Transformer Prime and Eee Pad Transformer, LG G-Slate, Motorola Xoom, Motorola Xyboard 10.1, and Toshiba Thrive. The app (free, Google Play) will become available for more Android tablets in the future as well, Hulu added.
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03/22, 9:30am
Acer Iconia Tab A510 US details
Acer on early Thursday detailed the North American version of the Iconia Tab A510, its first real answer to the new iPad. The quad-core Tegra 3 tablet will reach the US and Canada with 32GB of storage in both black- and silver-backed versions. Every version ships with a 10-inch, 1280x800 display, a five-megapixel rear camera, a front one-megapixel camera, and mini HDMI video out.
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03/19, 11:50am
New iPad outruns Tegra 3 in gaming and web
A fresh comparison has validated many of the suspicions that the new iPad's A5X may well be faster than NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor in a large number of tests. Apple's slate, despite competing against a quad-core chip from a company considered an expert in graphics, was faster in visually-oriented tests conducted by Laptop. While a standard GLBenchmark test showed it about 13 percent faster, a texture fill rate test in the same suite showed it having almost five times the processing power in that area.
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03/05, 7:20pm
Apple said to have settled on iPad HD
An uncommon instance of two dovetailing rumors may have divulged the final name of the next iPad. Both CNET and VentureBeat understood from sources that it would be called the iPad HD to emphasize the high-resolution 2048x1536 screen. While still going mostly on word, it came just after accessories had turned up making an association with the name.
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03/02, 7:05pm
iPad 3 to up features while keeping prices
Rumors that the iPad 3 might get a price hike were theoretically debunked in a form of counter-rumor on Friday. Prices are expected by a familiar 9to5 source to be the same as they are for the iPad 2 despite the anticipated 2048x1536 screen, faster processor, and upgraded camera. Talk of cutting off a 64GB model and possibly adding an 8GB iPad 2 were tossed aside as well, with at least the iPad 3 still sitting at the 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities of today.
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02/17, 10:25am
Acer to bring Android 4 to all tablets in April
Acer has revealed the official timeline for updating its range of Iconia Tabs to Android 4.0. The 10.1-inch A200 is currently getting the update in the US, while the 10-inch A500 and 7-inch A100 will get the software in April. As part of the update, the A500 and A100 will get the Acer Ring launcher, the company's own customization that lets users make shortcuts, capture screenshots, and more.
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02/16, 1:50pm
Acer Iconia Tab A510 with Wi-Fi approved
Acer's mid-range Android 4.0 tablet, the Iconia Tab A510, has gotten considerably closer to a possible US launch after an FCC approval Wednesday. While the filing is focused on wireless and just confirms that it's a Wi-Fi only version, it shows the 10-inch slate getting close to a probable US release. European tips had put it in April.
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02/15, 3:45pm
BlackBerry PlayBook sees Kindle Fire effect
RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook may have seen the same effect on tablet share in Canada as its close cousin the Kindle Fire did in the US, Solutions Research Group said Wednesday. Having had as little as five percent in the fall, it's now estimated to be up to 15 percent of tablets in its home country through the price cut to $200. The shift would have dropped the iPad's share from 86 percent to 68 percent, the Globe and Mail was told.
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02/14, 6:15pm
Announcement for New Zealand customers
Acer's New Zealand division has confirmed that the Iconia Tab A500 will not receive an Android 4.0 upgrade until sometime in April. The announcement was directed at users in Australia and New Zealand, rather than the company's global customers, leaving the release timing unclear for other regions.
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02/09, 9:15am
iPad 3 to get expected one-year anniversary launch
Apple may hew closely to the formula of its iPad launch last year for the iPad 3 if leaks Thursday are indicators. The company would use the "first week in March" to introduce the new tablet and put it on sale roughly a week later, AllThingsD heard. The event would take place in San Francisco, most likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (pictured) that Apple has used for both iPad events so far.
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02/01, 7:35pm
Acer chairman sees core unity in notebooks
Acer chairman JT Wang made more comments at his company's Lunar New Year event that outlined more of how Acer planned to survive Apple and the computer market. He made the prediction that ultrabooks and netbooks would fold into a single category within the next 18 to 24 months. Digitimes didn't glean how this would happen, although the company had predicted $499 ultrabooks by 2013 that would leave little gap between the two.
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01/22, 12:50pm
Acer Iconia Tab A510 and A700 get Euro launch info
A pair of updates following a press event in Hamburg have given likely release dates for Acer's Iconia Tab A700 and its more mainstream A510 equivalent. Both Tablet Community and Tablet Test expect the quad-core Android 4.0 tablets to arrive in April. Production for at least the A510 was expected to start in February or March.
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01/20, 7:10pm
Sports Tegra 2 1GHz chipset and 16GB of storage
A few days later than expected, Acer's new Tegra 2-based 10.1-inch tablet has gone on sale in the US. The Iconia Tablet A200 is now available at Best Buy. The tablet had been anticipated to arrive on US shores this Monday.
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01/08, 5:25pm
Acer shows A700 tablet with Tegra 3
At the end of Acer's live event, Acer teased the Iconia Tab A700. While not mentioning it by name, the company confirmed that the Android tablet was quad-core -- already known to be using the Tegra 3 -- and played HD video as proof. It gave no details or a release date.
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01/05, 1:55pm
Iconia Tab A200 coming on January 15 for $330
Acer's upcoming budget-priced Iconia Tab A200 tablet is due to arrive on January 15 in the US, priced at $330. Its specs will include a dual-core, 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 10.1-inch, 1280x800 touchscreen display. While Android 3.2 will initially be onboard, it will be updated to Android 4 sometime in mid-February.
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12/29, 8:55pm
Tablet shows days after A200 begins pre-sale
Just days after Acer put its Iconia Tab A200 tablet up for pre-sale in the UK, the upgraded A700 model has surfaced in Russia. The latter tablet is described by Nomobile.ru as thinner and lighter than the former, with a housing that measures 9.8mm thick, while the 10.1-inch display has been upgraded with 1920x1200 resolution.
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12/27, 3:50pm
Acer Iconia Tab A200 due in UK January 6
The recently introduced Iconia Tab A200 from Acer has just shown up at UK retailer Very in both black and red versions. The listing reveal the price of the 10.1-inch tablet to be £299 (about $470) after tax, with North American prices likely to be lower than that if it crosses over. Both are similar apart from color.
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12/26, 12:25am
Acer creator Shih expects tablets to stay
Acer shouldn't give up on its tablet business just because it's struggling at this stage, the company's founder Stan Shih remarked this weekend. He called the tough conditions "unavoidable" in Digitimes' account of the chat. The former executive likened it to teething troubles Acer had when it first dipped into notebooks, implying that Acer ultimately became a major contender by holding on to its strategy.
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12/23, 8:10am
Acer may scale back mobile teams
Acer might significantly scale back its touch device efforts if reports with possible official confirmation are accurate. The company was said by Taiwan's Economic Daily News to be dropping its touch business group and moving half of its 300 research and development workers there to other divisions. It would still have smartphone and tablet teams, but they would be cut down to 30 and 70 each.
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12/14, 12:10pm
Merrill Lynch estimates iPad, Android real winners
Merrill Lynch analyst Scott Craig in a research note estimated that 2012 would see multiple tablet designers cut out of the market. RIM would be the primary victim, as its poor BlackBerry PlayBook sales had not only lacked momentum but created a ripple effect where developers didn't write apps. In his projection, the analyst saw the PlayBook as non-existent in 2012's market share.
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12/07, 10:55pm
Acer chief to avoid PC race to the bottom
Acer in a discussion surrounding the company's global internal meeting confirmed a broader switch away from its traditional budget base towards ultrabooks. CEO JT Wang told Dow Jones that the ultra-thin PCs, which owe their existence to the MacBook Air, would be the "key growth driver" in 2012. The Taiwan firm said it would stop participating in what's often referred to as the race to the bottom, or an obsession with price and sheer market share among Windows PC makers that leads to sacrifices in build quality and sustainable profit.
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12/02, 7:40am
Acer Iconia Tab A200 precedes higher end models
Acer quickly confirmed last-minute leaks Friday with a new addition to its Iconia Tab line. The A200 carries the same 10-inch display and dual-core Tegra 2 chip as the A500 but drops the rear camera and cuts the storage to 8GB or 16GB depending on the model. In return, it gets a softer, more colorful look in gray or red, although it's still relatively thick at 0.49 inches.
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11/30, 5:00pm
Acer pledges itself to tablets and to Tegra 3
Acer President Jim Wong in an interview committed his company to tablets. Somewhat contradicting his company's usual position, he told T3 that tablets were a "very important category" to Acer. It was the only company shipping Windows tablets in significant numbers, Wong said, and would have a Windows 8 tablet along with its Android efforts.
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11/29, 8:40pm
Acer, Lenovo, and Samsung line up for Tegra 3
A new rumor from the portable industry has Acer, Lenovo, and Samsung lining up their quad-core Tegra 3 tablets for the first quarter of 2012 for what may be a repeat of the conflict with Apple. While not specific on which models were coming, the Digitimes tips suggested Acer's Iconia Tab A510 and A700, the upcoming Lenovo tablet, and a future Samsung Galaxy Tab variant would all be unveiled at CES or Mobile World Congress. Prices wouldn't dip significantly below the high end at between $459 to $599.
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11/29, 10:55am
DisplaySearch expects tablet rush to sharpen LCDs
The iPad 3 display should help kick off a dramatic improvement in the quality of tablet displays early next year, DisplaySearch said. Based on its own shipment forecast data, it expected the typical pixels per inch (PPI) of a tablet to jump from 147 at the end of 2011 to 191 in early 2012. It understood that two tablet screens shipping in the fall would be instrumental to the spike, including a 1920x1200 10-inch display showing in the Iconia Tab A700 and the 9.7-inch, 2048x1536 screen that could only be destined for Apple's new tablet.
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11/28, 11:40am
Acer Iconia Tab A200 gets pre-release teaser clip
Acer has taken to a more Apple-like attempt to promote its tablets with a teaser video (below) for the Iconia Tab A200. The promo clip uncovered by I Love Tablette aims for the same sentimental but practical approach as iPad 2 ads but unusually dwells on expansion. A family on a camping trip is touted as helping share memories with microSD cards and a USB port.
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11/27, 6:00pm
Context shows iPad was dominating Q3 in Europe
Apple is likely to have no trouble holding on to the tablet market in Europe, according to newly uncovered data from Context. It estimates that Apple shipped 2.99 million of the 4.05 million tablets in the western European market during the summer, or 73.8 percent. While the iPad was down from 77.8 percent in the spring, much of that gain from rivals was attributed to the rush on the clearance HP TouchPad, which wouldn't be a factor in the fall.
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11/22, 9:05am
NPD shows HP leading US tablets for most of 2011
HP, not Samsung, was the ruler of non-iPad tablets in the US for the first ten months of the year, the NPD Group said in a new study. With just 1.2 million tablets sold at retail across every company outside of Apple, HP was the leader in the country at 17 percent, or 204,000, sold between its launch and October. The low count suggests that the fire sale $99 TouchPad, not HP's Windows range, was the sales leader by going on clearance.
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11/18, 9:50pm
NVIDIA expects Tegra 3 tablet prices to drop fast
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang in a media conversation Friday anticipated that the price of quad-core tablets would drop around the spring. Tablets running the Tegra 3 chip would reach $299 within "a couple quarters," he said with Engadget and others in attendance. He didn't say who would reach the milestone or what components it would take.
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11/18, 10:20am
PlayBook publicly gets 300-dollar price cut
Leaks of a $300 price cut on the BlackBerry PlayBook came true Friday after Canadian retailers started discounting the tablet. Best Buy, its sister chain Future Shop, and Staples all dropped prices on every capacity. The prices drop to as little as $199 for a 16GB version and peak at $399 for the 64GB model.
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11/16, 1:45pm
Flagship Acer Iconia Tab A700/701 shows up in UAP
Acer may have more than just one NVIDIA Tegra 3-powered tablet. A User Agent Profile uncovered at NotebookItalia has a previously unseen Iconia Tab A700/A701 showing up, sporting a currently unprecedented 1920x1200 resolution. This indicates a flagship, as the also leaked Iconia Tab A510 may get a lower 1280x800 resolution.
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11/14, 11:10am
Iconia Tab A510 to get Tegra 3 CPU, Android 4?
An upcoming tablet from Acer, the Iconia Tab A510/A511, has been leaked thanks to its User Agent Profile being shared by Japan's Ameblo. It will be a successor to the Iconia Tab A500 and, like that tablet, will use Android as its OS. By the time it ships, however, it should arrive with Android 4.0. Processing power will come from a quad-core Tegra 3.
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11/08, 2:45pm
Iconia Tab A200 measurements unveiled by FCC
Acer's upcoming Iconia Tab A200, which was leaked last week, has now shown up at the FCC. Specs are still unclear, though the measurements revealed at the FCC, at 11.7 inches when measured diagonally, suggest the screen size will be near 10 inches. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are also expected to be onboard, and it will come with an unspecified version of Android.
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11/04, 2:30pm
Acer Iconia Tab A200 seen early
Acer is now known to be planning a sequel or complement to the Iconia Tab A100 after a Bluetooth SIG page gave it away. The Iconia Tab A200 appears to be a slight change to the seven-inch design, although it's not clear what's changed other than its appearance. The version on show is Wi-Fi only.
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10/28, 2:15pm
GameStop takes tablet pilot program live
GameStop's mobile plans became real Friday after the company started up a tablet test program to sell tablets online and in stores. Android tablets like Acer's Iconia Tab A100, ASUS' Eee Pad Transformer, and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be available in 200 of its stores. Each will have both access to Kongregate's Arcade app store as well as seven free games, including EA's mobile versions of Dead Space and Madden as well as Sega's Sonic CD.
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10/21, 1:15pm
Acer posts second straight loss on tablet impact
Acer continued to struggle in coping with Apple on Friday after it posted a loss equivalent to $36.3 million. The drop wasn't as steep as the $234.2 million from the spring thanks to the Taiwan PC bulider writing off the $150 million in 'abnormalities' of unsold PCs in Europe. The result still dashed earlier hopes of turning back to profit for Acer, which still expects to post an overall loss for the year.
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09/29, 1:40pm
Performance tweaks, video zooming also included
Skype has released a new version of its VoIP chat client for Android phones. Skype 2.5 (free, Market) adds video chat support for 14 Android devices, including the
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (T-Mobile version), Acer Iconia Tablet (A500), Motorola Photon and Motorola Xoom. As with the latest client for Mac and iOS, Skype 2.5 for Android brings ads to the free version. Ads are not shown to users with Skype Credit or a subscription.
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09/29, 12:00am
Acer VP hopes ultrabooks cure for loss to tablets
Acer VP Scott Lin in remarks captured Wednesday was adamant that Intel's MacBook Air-inspired ultrabook concept would help rescue the PC industry. Tablets like the iPad were mostly popular because they were light, thin, and had good battery life while focused on entertainment, he said with Digitimes in earshot. Once ultrabooks got to that point, buying habits would "reverse" as people would rather get one ultrabook that did both instead of having both a tablet and a regular notebook.
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09/11, 10:00pm
ATT finally ships 3G Acer Iconia Tab
AT&T has made September 18 one of its busier days as it revealed Sunday that it plans to roll out its long-promised version of the Acer Iconia Tab A501 on that date. Its version is largely stock apart from the HSPA+ 3G and will ship with Android 3.0, not the 3.1 most Iconia Tabs have since seen through an upgrade. A patch to 3.1 is expected relatively soon after the tablet ships.
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09/05, 1:00pm
Gateway's A60 Android tablet a rebranded A500
Gateway has taken the Acer Iconia Tab A500 and rebranded it as its own, calling it the A60 in the process. Specs remain largely the same, with a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 for a processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of integrated storage. The Android 3.1 tablet is still framed around a 10.1-inch, 1280x800 screen.
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08/12, 8:55am
Acer Iconia Tab A100 confirmed for US at 330 price
Acer on Friday at last confirmed the launch of the Iconia Tab A100 in the US. The design is the first seven-inch tablet to ship with the Honeycomb interface and uses Android 3.2 to scale the tablet interface properly to the smaller screen. It fits the same dual-core Tegra 2 chip, five-megapixel rear camera, and two-megapixel front camera as its 10-inch A500 counterpart, just at a smaller 1024x600 resolution.
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08/08, 5:00pm
Iconia Tab A100 goes on sale for $334
The Acer Iconia Tab A100 is now starting to ship to US retailers, including ExcaliberPC and SuperBiiz for $329 and $334, respectively. The seven-inch tablet sports Android 3.2 and 8GB of storage space. It is powered by NVIDIA's dual-core Tegra 250 1GHz CPU and has 1GB of RAM onboard.
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08/05, 8:35am
Acer's Shih still convinced tablets just temporary
Acer's creator Stan Shih tried to stir controversy Friday with remarks once again trying to dismiss primarily Apple-driven technology. He called tablets like the iPad, and now the ultrabook category created by the MacBook Air, "short-term phenomena" that would go away. The conventional PC was the cornerstone of technology; not only did the tablet and smartphone come from the PC, but everything had to go through it to make value, Digitimes recounts him as saying.
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08/04, 10:35am
ASUS drops Eee PC orders, sees 2m Eee Pads in 2011
Part suppliers revealed that ASUS was gradually scaling down its Eee PC business. With a surfeit of Eee Pad Transformer demand and the crash in netbooks, ASUS was shifting more of its attention to tablets. Production run estimates for the Transformer given to Digitimes had up to 800,000 of the Android designs shipping in the summer, helping contribute to a total of two million for the whole year.
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