Acer shows laptop lid look tablet Acer has unwrapped its iPad alternative, the ten-inch Iconia Tab A500, which features the now de rigeuer Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Due in April, the A500 is powered by Nvidia's two-core Tegra 250 chip running at 1GHz. The 10.1in screen has a 1280 x 800 resolution, but you can also play content through the tablet's mini HDMI port …
A quick straw poll around the office (ok thats only 4 people) but no one can think of a really good reason for a camera on the back of something this big. I mean your hardly going to whip this out for some quick fire photography like you can with a phone camera, and with only 4MP with no optics, the quality is not going to be anything to write home about...
Ideas anyone? Is it just because the Ipad had one that everyones copying it even if its next to useless?
The spec and hardware requirements for a standard "android device" (eg GPS) actually include both front and rear facing cameras in the spec. Without the extra camera there is no access to the marketplace unless you manually install it.
Disclamer : This is something "I read some where" though so I could easy be wrong BUT I does seem logic to a degree. When designing a marketplace app you need to be assured basic/minium hardware requirements.
I suspect that, at least in part, it is just "Feature tick box". In Dixons and the like, these things are displayed with a list of features with ticks next to them if they have it. If this device doesn't have a tick next to "5MP camera" and a rival next to it, at a similar price, does - joe public will buy the one that seems to offer most bang-for-the-buck.
Also, there are apps on the Android Marketplace which require a camera. I can imagine it being useful for something like Google SkyMap.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
