It's the age old technology question - at what stage is a product "good enough" for the majority of users?
Telstra's new budget-minded tablet computer, the T-Touch Tab, will be a good test of this in the growing mobility market. At $299, it's cheaper than many smartphones, which means several compromises that might have tech enthusiasts thinking twice.
The T-Touch Tab also raises several other questions about the emerging crop of new tablet devices. What is the ideal screen size? At 7in, the T-Touch Tab is one of several tablets that's smaller than an iPad. And is it useful to be able to make phone calls and texts from your tablet? Like the Dell Streak, Telstra's device comes with a data and voice/text allowance, though we'll be interested to see whether this will involve a dock/speakerphone arrangement.
The T-Touch Tab is 500g, which is more than twice as heavy as the Dell Streak, though a touch lighter than the iPad, which is 730grams for the WiFi and 3G model. At 7in it will be more difficult to put in your pocket like you can do (just) with a Dell Streak.
The processor is 768MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, and there's a resistive rather than capacitive touchscreen. The T-Touch Tab runs Android 2.1 rather than 2.2, and isn't currently capable of playing Flash videos from Web sites.
The other major factor to consider is pricing plans. Telstra is launching the T-Touch Tab for $299 with 3GB of data and $10 of talk/texts. After the first 30 days though, it will cost you $40 a month for 1GB of pre-paid data.
By comparison, Optus pre-paid starter packs for the iPad cost $30 for 3GB, with recharges costing $20 for 2GB.
With the level of interest in tablets relatively strong, according to this survey, it will be interesting to see if a sweet spot emerges for Android devices. We've already seen a number of cheap tablets, including this one from Pioneer Computers.
Interestingly, tablet users browsing, email and social networking as the top three uses for the devices.
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