Viewsonic ViewPad Coming Soon?

With the IFA consumer electronics trade fair just around the corner, pre-announcements and product leaks are coming through thick and fast. We've just learned, for example, that Viewsonic should be presenting its ViewPad tablet at the show later this week.

This summer, it seems that each week has brought with it a new batch of tablet-based announcements. But with the IFA trade fair due to open its doors this week (3-8 September), the pace now appears to have picked up. Last week, Engadget managed to get hold of information about the upcoming presentation of a touchscreen tablet made by Viewsonic, a brand that has been somewhat dwindling on this side of the pond. The tablet is said to run on Android 2.1 and has a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. It'll also have Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, and a front-facing camera, probably for video calls and face-to-face chat.



Engadget, however, seems to think that this 'new' Viewsonic tablet could simply be a manufacturer's rebrand of a tablet that's already been announced. To back up these claims, Engadget posts a link to a story announcing the Olive Pad 3.5G, a touchscreen tablet from Indian telecoms operator, Olive Telecom. And a quick look at the Olive Pad (below) soon shows it to be very, very similar to the ViewPad.



This striking resemblance can help us tentatively fill in some of the blanks in the ViewPad's spec. The Olive Telecom tablet is set to launch soon for $500 and will have an ARM 600 Mhz processor, a 512 MB internal memory (+microSD slot) and 512 MB of ROM. It'll also have a 3G connection for making and receiving calls, as well as connecting to the web when no Wi-Fi signal is available. Stay tuned for more information and spec confirmation (or not!) in the coming days.


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