Now What – The iPad, the TEGA tablet, does it change things

CNN: ‘If you want to buy a consumer-friendly tablet computer today and you don’t want to purchase Apple’s iPad, you’re pretty much out of luck.

The iPad currently has no real competitors, and the touch-screen computer is so far ahead of the market that it has some gadget makers running back to the drawing boards, according to technology industry analysts.

“In essence, what Apple has done is created a wake-up call to the rest of the industry — that they need to look at what they’re offering,” said David Daoud, research director for the firm IDC. “They raised the bar significantly.”

Can anyone compete?  A friend asked me to write about the TEGA Tablet which was about the same size as an iPad and comes with a lot of functionality. So here it is along with its spec for the more technically minded:

The CNN article is right – the iPad has raised the bar, I like the competition it is producing – having played with it at a recent Publisher’s Australia event which demonstrated the iPad for publishers it is a game changer as far as technology and how people are going to access and publish information. Maybe the laptop will disappear altogether as more products like the iPad, and the TEGA tablet are produced,  I don’t know, but what is good is that with new technology comes new ways not only of doing things but of thinking and that’s the bit that excites me.

(for more on the iPad, TEGA Tablet and Kindle you might want to check out Sean Carmody’s blog post at the Stubborn Mule: The Re-birth of the Tablet).