Apple iPad (2010)

Apple iPad (2010)

Launched January 2010

At the start of 2010, the Apple iPhone had been on the market for two-and-a-half years and a bit of a slow start it was becoming rather popular, along with its rival Android platform.

But although modern smartphones were easy to use for some tasks, their small screens could be a pain. Go bigger and you might end up spending a lot of money on a notebook computer which would take ages to boot up.

There were other solutions, and as ever it was Nokia who were exploring them. The elegant Nokia Booklet 3G took and inexpensive small notebook design and added seamless 3G connectivity along with the advantages of a 10.1” display. And five years previously, Nokia had introduced something called an “Internet Tablet” with a relatively large 4.1” display running a version of Linux.

Nokia had all the technologies it needed to take the next step in personal computing, but it hadn’t put them together in the right way. However, in January 2010 Apple put together all the available technologies to come up with a product that people hadn’t realised that they actually wanted until that point – the Apple iPad.

Rumours had been flying around for a while about some tablet-based computer, but there were few solid details. In fact, the smart money seemed to be convinced that the device was going to be called the Apple iSlate (a trademark that Apple actually owned). But overall Apple's veil of secrecy about the new device held.

The iPad was as easy to use as the iPhone but had a 9.7” display, was just 13mm thick and weighed only around 700 grams. Priced at between $499 for the basic 16GB WiFi-only version to $829 for a 64GB one with 3G they weren’t exactly cheap, but they were still good value compared to a lot of laptops.

Of course, the iPad lacked a keyboard or mouse (but it didn’t take long for Bluetooth keyboards to come out), however the main flaw with the iPad was that it didn’t support multitasking, so you couldn’t run multiple apps at once. This was eventually fixed in iOS 4.2 launched in November 2010, but to begin with it was certainly a handicap.

Regardless of the flaws it may have had, the iPad launched in a blaze of publicity and it was a massive hit – selling 15 million units before the launch of the iPad 2. Unusually for Apple, it had only a short lifespan for software updates with the last OS upgrade coming out in May 2012.

Several generations later and the iPad is still a strong seller, however sales peaked in about 2013 and have been in decline ever since. Part of this apparent decline is probably due to smartphones becoming more capable – the iPhone 11 Pro Max has a 6.5” display for example – and also people replace tablets less often. Despite many competitors coming along (and mostly failing) Apple still has more than a third of the market it essentially created.


Image credits: Apple

Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 (1997)

Apple Newton MessagePad 2100

Launched November 1997

More than a decade before the launch of the iPad and iPhone, Apple had another range of handheld computing devices called the Newton series. Launched originally in 1993 to a press fanfare but mixed reviews, the Newton range was improved over its lifespan up to the final device in the range – the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100.

Not too dissimilar in footprint to an iPad Mini, but much thicker and heavier, the MessagePad 2100 sported a 6.1” monochrome LCD display with a 480 x 320 pixel resolution and a stylus. Inside is a 162 MHz ARM processor with 4MB of RAM and 4 MB of flash storage. Connectivity was through infra-red or an Apple LocalTalk connection with two PCMCIA expansion slots that could be used for things like modems or network cards. Software available included a word processor, e-book reader, web browser and email client.

It sounds like a modern tablet, but really it wasn’t anything close. There was no kind of cellular or mobile data (GPRS and EVDO would come a couple of years later, as would generally available WiFi) so connecting to the internet would typically involve a cable and the horrors of a dial-up modem. To a large extent the MessagePad was just an electronic personal organizer rather than the sort of device we’d see today.

The MessagePad struggled against the market-leading Palm Pilot and early shortcomings had tarnished its reputation in the public eye. Despite a great deal of goodwill from Apple fans of the late 1990s, the Newton range wasn’t the success that Apple were looking for. The entire platform was axed by Apple’s new CEO, a certain Steve Jobs.

Fans of the Newton platform argue that it was killed off just as it was getting into its stride, and that Jobs may have been partly motivated by revenge against the people who ousted him in 1985 from the company he founded.

It took another decade or so to get to the technology level that allowed the iPhone and iPad, and although the Newton range was certainly influential it was a dead-end platform, as was the rival Palm Pilot. But not all PDAs of this era went the same way, and Psion’s Series 5 (also launched in 1997) helped to give birth to the Symbian OS that eventually became the dominant smartphone platform... for a while

MessagePads of most varieties are still popular collectors’ items, with prices for the 2100 varying between about €50 to €400 or more, depending on condition and accessories.

Image credits:

moparx via Flickr

m.p.3. via Flickr

Amazon Kindle (2007)

Launched November 2007

Ten years ago this month, Amazon started a surprise revolution with the launch of the original Amazon Kindle e-book reader. Launched at a time when single-purpose devices were beginning to converge into smartphones, the Kindle created a niche for that type of product that it still dominates today.

These days we are used to having our cameras, handheld games consoles, music players, GPS navigation, web browsers, email clients and telephones all in one smartphone. And while you certainly can read e-books on your mobile device, dedicated readers such as the Kindle still sell very well.

Probably the most significant element that the Kindle brought was the large 6” electronic ink display. Lightweight and with a very low power drain, the display operated best in bright light where other devices would struggle. A Kindle would run for weeks on a single charge, and the 250MB storage of the original was good for a couple of hundred books.

It wasn’t the first consumer product with an electronic ink display (that was the 2006 Motorola FONE F3), and it wasn’t the first e-reader such a display either (that was the Sony PRS-500 also from 2006) but Amazon’s unique selling proposition was that they could sell you the book from their own catalogue and it would be delivered instantly to your Kindle without any waiting around.

When launched, the Kindle sold out almost instantly and it took another five months for stock to become generally available. This initial success seemed a bit of a surprise, given that the original Kindle cost a staggering $400 and there were only a limited number of titles available. Oh yes... the original Kindle was also a bit weird looking too.

The original Kindle was only available in the US, but the second generation device launched in the US in February 2009 started shipping in worldwide markets in October of that year. The third generation devices hit the market in 2010 by which time Amazon had a major hit on its hands. These later models tend to be available in both WiFi and 3G variants.

Subsequent models lost the keyboard, came with better displays of varying sizes and capabilities but the basic principle has remained the same. In 2011 a range of more conventional Android-based tablets were launched called the Amazon Kindle Fire (later shorted to just Amazon Fire) – these were a significant success for Amazon, but an attempt to make a smartphone to follow this up flopped.

In the US one of the quirky first generation devices will cost you about $40 used, a new basic Kindle costs around $80 (£60 / €70) with the popular Paperwhite model coming in at $120 (£110 / €130). And although not every digital e-book is cheaper than its paper rivals, book lovers have certainly found that they don’t have to worry about the never-ending battle for shelf space, which is a little victory in itself.

Image credits:

Gino Zahnd via Flickr

John Blyberg via Flickr

Nokia N810 (2007)

Launched October 2007

Back in 2007, Nokia was happy designing elegant but technically limited feature phones, and although they did have a flagship smartphone with the N95, rivals Apple were stealing the show with their own way of doing things.

But away from Nokia’s mobile phone division, another project had been working on a series of what they called “Internet Tablets”, launching the 770 in 2005 then the improved N800 in early 2007. The Nokia N810 was the third-generation device, launched in October 2007 and it started to show some real promise.

Although the N810 looks very much like a modern smartphone, this wasn’t a phone at all. A tiny Linux computer with WiFi and an then impressive 4.1” 800 x 480 pixel display it certainly shared a lot a characteristics with a modern mobile, but this had no cellular connectivity and was being sold as a rival to small form factor computers.

Running the Maemo operating system, the N810 was running a version of Linux developed especially for touchscreen devices. The 128MB of RAM and 400MHz processor isn’t much by today’s standards, but it was equivalent to what was in the first-generation iPhone. Unlike the original iPhone, you could download applications onto the N810 (or even compile your own).

It appealed to a very different type of customer than the iPhone – N810 users had a tendency to be established Linux users, gadget freaks or technologists. This relatively small community did help to drive things forward, but progress was slow. It took another two years to evolve the Maemo platform into a smartphone with the Nokia N900 which ultimately was not the commercial success it needed to be.

I’ve written about Maemo many times, but I’ll say it again – Maemo was Nokia’s best hope to move away from the restrictions of Symbian and come up with a smart device good enough for the second decade of the twenty-first century. Fundamentally, Maemo was every bit as capable as Android or iOS because it was based on essentially the same Unix-derived platform. With enough resources behind it, there was a good chance that it would have succeeded but in the end Nokia missed a vital opportunity and suffered for it.

Today the N810 is an interesting relic of what could have been, with prices today ranging from about €50 to several hundred depending on condition, although it isn’t a particularly common device.

Microsoft Surface RT (2012)

Microsoft Surface RT (2012)

Announced June 2012

Sometimes product lines take a while to become a success. The Microsoft Surface range of hybrid tablets is one such example. Sitting in the gap between traditional tablets and laptops, the original Surface (later renamed as the Surface RT) was a very elegant and modern looking device running a version of Microsoft's then new Windows 8 operating system (called Windows RT).

Unlike most Windows systems, the original Surface ran on an ARM processor rather than an Intel compatible one. This put the Surface more on the tablet side of the fence - the slightly later Surface Pro had an Intel CPU and was just on the laptop side of the fence.

The Surface was originally pitched against the iPad, but one key difference was the detachable keyboard that the Surface could use. Another one was the kickstand to keep it upright. Of course, this was a Windows device.. And more to the point, it was a Windows RT device which meant that it could only use applications from the Windows Store. And it turned out that there weren't many of them to choose from..

The Surface came with both front and rear cameras, and you could plug USB devices into it which is impossible in most other tablets. It was also very stylishly designed, and the clip-on keyboard was another unique selling proposition. Windows RT was theoretically more capable that iOS or Android, but in the event it never got to shine.

Despite some promising features, the original Surface was not a success… and neither was the Windows RT operating system. Sales were sluggish and Microsoft ended up writing off nearly a billion dollars worth of unsold inventory. Windows RT was just too restrictive for many, and after about six months there were no new devices from any manufacturer launched.

However, Microsoft stuck with it. One key change in later versions was the switch to an Intel architecture, a move upmarket to something more laptop-like and a full version of Windows. After five years of trying, the current range of Surface devices are something of a success at the premium end of the market.

The Surface was not Microsoft's first foray into the hardware market - it has been producing mice, keyboard and consoles for years - but it was their first product of its type. It may well have been instrumental in persuading Microsoft that they could "do" hardware which the disastrous 2014 takeover of Nokia proved otherwise.

Apple iPad 3 (2012)

Apple iPad 3

Launched March 2012

It took a few attempts for Apple to get the iPad really right. As with the iPhone, it was the third generation of the device that really started to include all the features that customers wanted. It also introduced Apple's baffling way of naming the iPad that continues to this day.

Outwardly it was a black or white slabby thing that looked similar to previous generations, but this iPad was the first one to introduce the "retina display" seen in the iPhone 4. This meant that the resolution jumped to 1536 x 2048 pixels compared to just 768 x 1024 on previous generations. Apple had also realised that people actually took photos and videos with the iPad and fitted a decent 5 megapixel camera on the back rather than the pretty miserable 0.7 megapixel sensor on the iPad 2.

It was faster than the iPad 2 and the cellular version could support 4G LTE data. It was also thicker and heavier, but the price was the same as the iPad 2 when it launched. This improved version was a sales success - but it had the shortest lifespan of any iOS device, lasting just seven months until replaced by the iPad 4. As with most Apple products it received software updates over the years with the latest coming in August 2016.

Five years later and the current iPad is much the same, only lighter and faster than the iPad 3. But Apple actually dropped the generation of the iPad after the iPad 2 (the iPad 3 was never officially called that), and the 2017 iPad is also just called the "iPad" even though the previous models were the iPad Air and iPad Air 2. This is a bit confusing, as Apple insist on a generational name for each iPhone.

Because the iPad 3 is still very usable, prices for used models are quite strong with prices for a high-spec on being about €150 or so, compared to €400 for a base model of the current generation. It's not really a collectible device though nor can it run the latest version of iOS, however there are still probably millions of these in everyday use.

Image source: Apple

HTC Advantage X7500 and Shift X9500 (2007)

HTC Advantage X7500

Announced March 2007

Even before the launch of the iPhone a decade ago, one company was pioneering smartphones with a vision years ahead of everyone else. That company was HTC. In March 2007, just a few months after the launch of Apple's iconic device, HTC came up with a rather different vision of what it thought the future should be.

The HTC Advantage X7500 (sold under many names including the T-Mobile Ameo) pushed the boundaries of what a smartphone could be. The 5" VGA resolution display was enormous for the time, there was a QWERTY keyboard that was detachable and a then very impressive 8GB of internal storage and an internal hard disk (yes, made of spinning metal). This was a Windows Mobile 5.0 device, and it also supported HSDPA and WiFi data, had GPS, a TV output, came with a 3 megapixel primary camera and VGA camera for video calling and had a microSD slot. Inside was a 624 MHz Intel Xscale processor with 128MB of RAM. In hardware terms it completely stomped over the iPhone, but it was two-and-a-half times the weight. It was quite an expensive device at about €850 SIM-free (€200 more than an unlocked iPhone) but it was pretty obviously a premium product.

It wasn't a huge sales success, but it is credited by some as helping to popularise big-screen smartphones. In 2008 HTC followed it up with the X7510 with more storage and Windows Mobile 6.0. Today you can pick up either model for around €50 to €70 for an unlocked version.

HTC Shift X9500

Launched the same month was the HTC Shift X9500. Sporting a 7" WVGA touchscreen, the Shift was actually an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) with some clever tricks up it's sleeve but an eye-watering price-tag to match. The Shift could boot into either Windows Vista (which probably really, really counted against it in the long run) or an application called SnapVUE which was basically a specially-written mobile operating system. In order to accommodate these two OSes, the Shift required both an Intel x86 processor for Windows and an ARM11 CPU for SnapVUE. It came with a 40 or 60GB hard disk, a microSD slot, HSDPA and 3G data plus WiFi, a fingerprint reader and 1GB of RAM. Priced in the US at about $1500, when it finally did get to market in 2008 it was four times the price of a 7" Asus EEE PC.

It took a long time to come to market. It was not a sale success, but the 7" format ended up being a popular size for the tablets that were to come a few years later. But neither Windows Vista nor Windows Mobile 5.0 were ever really popular platforms, but eventually HTC switched its emphasis from Windows and produced the first Android smartphone. But that it another story.

Image source: HTC

Apple eMate 300 (1997)

Apple eMate 300

The history of Apple stretches back four decades. Sandwiched between the early successes of the 1970s to early 1980s and later dominance of the company in the twenty-first century, there was a long period during which Apple lost direction and at various points it seemed the company had no future.

One product from these years of doldrums was the MessagePad line, often simply known as the "Apple Newton" after the unique operating system. A tablet-sized device originally launched in 1993, the original MessagePad was an interesting idea, but it was too far ahead of the available technology to really be a success.

In March 1997 the most unusual addition to this range was launched - the eMate 300. Where previous MessagePads used a stylus and handwriting recognition, the eMate 300 was a different beast with a physical QWERTY keyboard housed in a colourful, oversized clamshell case. The eMate 300 was designed for use in schools, and the simple-to-use operating system and relatively inexpensive price tag (compared to other Apple products) along with the tough and rather funky green case reflected this. In many ways, the eMate 300 was a reflection of the original Mac when it came to being an all-in-one computing appliance.

The screen was a 6.8" 480 x 320 greyscale panel, a bit smaller than the display in an iPad mini but in a much bigger case. Users could store data on special flash memory cards, and there were various expansion capabilities including a PCMCIA slot. The CPU was a 25 MHz ARM 710 unit, perhaps foreshadowing the huge popularity of ARM processors in mobile devices today.

Although the eMate 300 was available for sale through educational channels only, some found their way into other applications. It was an interesting device, but it never reached its full potential and in February 1998 the recently-returned Steve Jobs killed the entire MessagePad / Newton product line.

The legacy of the MessagePad line is fairly obvious - the iPad and iPhone. The translucent case idea found critical acclaim with the original iMac, which helped to reverse Apple's declining fortunes. These days the eMate 300 is pretty much forgotten, due in part that it only really sold in educational circles and even those seemed to be in the United States only. These days there are quite a few eMate 300s available, with prices topping out at $150 or so for a good one.

Image Credits: Pinot Dita via Flickr and Dave Lawrence via Flickr

Amazon Kindle Fire (2011)

Announced September 2011

Since 2007, Amazon had been selling the highly successful eBook reader, the Amazon Kindle. That simple device helped Amazon sell a lot of books that they might not have done otherwise, but the Kindle was a very limited device. In September 2011, Amazon therefore announced the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet running a modified version of Android, which was something that could do a lot more than just read books.

Although the Kindle Fire was a fully-featured Android device, it was designed to get all of its content from the Amazon Appstore. This meant that Amazon, and not Google, controlled what apps were available and took a cut of the profits. The Kindle Fire also had access to Amazon's music and video libraries, although you could access all of these on any regular Android device too.

One advantage the Kindle Fire had was that you had to do very little to get access to Amazon's library of digital content, and the simplicity of that had an appeal to consumers. The other advantage was that the Kindle Fire was relatively cheap, as Amazon didn't need to make a profit on the units themselves, just the content that users bought.

The original Kindle Fire tablet was a 7" device with a 600 x 1024 pixel display and just 8GB of storage. So far there have been three generations of the original tablet, plus a range of more powerful units with bigger HD screens and more memory. In 2014 Amazon tried to follow up the success of the tablet by producing a Fire smartphone, but this wasn't a success.

These days there are a range of Fire tables ("Kindle" was dropped from the name some time ago) starting at just $50 in the US or €60 or £50 in Europe. The tablet didn't kill off the original eBook reader either, which continued to evolve and kept the same epic battery life as ever.

Image credit: Amazon

Second time around: Apple iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1 (2011)

Announced March 2011

The second generation of Apple’s successful iPad and Samsung’s less-than-successful Galaxy Tab range were announced in March 2011, giving consumers a choice of significantly improved products over the models from the previous year.

The Apple iPad 2 stole most of the headlines. Much slimmer and lighter than the old model, the iPad 2 was also much faster and also introduced iOS 4.3 which added even more features and polish to an already pretty good device.  The iPad 2 added a couple of low-resolution cameras (enabling video calling through FaceTime), something missing completely from the original, although the 9.7” 768 x 1024 pixel display remained. The simple but effective "Smart Covers" also enhanced the usability of the new iPad.

Apple iPad 2 (2011)

Samsung’s response was to create a tablet a little larger than the iPad 2, and one a little smaller. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 had originally been announced in February, but after the iPad 2 was announced, Samsung engineers redesigned it to be thinner and lighter. The 10.1” display had a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, better than the iPad, it had much better cameras and was just about as powerful inside. The awful version of Android from the original Galaxy Tab had been dropped and the new Android 3.0 OS had been designed especially for tablets. Launched alongside it was an 8.9” version of the tablet, identical in most respects except it was smaller.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (2011)

Out of the two, it was the Apple device that sold in huge quantities. Samsung had been stung by criticism of the original Galaxy Tab, and it was going to take some time before consumers would trust that they had a quality product. But these two Galaxy Tabs did show that Apple had some real competition.

The Apple iPad 2 is still a supported device today, supporting iOS 9.2.1. No matter if you like Apple products or not, they offer excellent support for their gadgets for many years after they were bought. Samsung on the other hand only provided updates until 2012, with a version of Android 4.0... and after that the devices rapidly became obsolete. These days a good used iPad 2 will still cost you around €140, with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 being worth just half of that.

HP TouchPad, Pre 3 and Veer: Palm’s last throw of the dice

Announced February 2011

The history of Palm is a long and complex one, starting in the early 1990s and then going through a series of splits and mergers over the years, cumulating in HP’s takeover of the company in 2010. Palm fans hoped that HP’s resources would save the struggling company and its innovative webOS operating system, and hopes were buoyed by a launch of three related products in February 2011.

These three devices had dropped the “Palm” name, but they were still true to their roots. The HP TouchPad tablet, plus the HP Pre 3 and compact HP Veer smartphones added a significant layer of polish to preview webOS devices, and fans were encouraged by these new developments, especially the TouchPad.

HP TouchPad

The TouchPad had a 9.7” 768 x 1028 pixel display,  a dual-core 1.2GHz processor with 1GB of RAM and 16 or 32GB of storage. There was single front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling. Initially it was a WiFi-only device with a 4G version promised.

The Pre 3 had a 3.6” 480 x 800 pixel touchscreen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, plus a 5 megapixel primary camera, 0.3 megapixel secondary one plus 8GB of storage and 512MB of RAM. The last of the trio was the Veer, which was pretty similar to the Pres 3 but with a 2.6” 320 x 400 pixel screen instead and a somewhat lesser feature set.

The Veer hit US retailers in May, the TouchPad hit the stores in July at a rather pricey $600 for the 32GB version and the Pre 3 was launched in the UK on 17th August 2011. But what happened next shocked both fans and observers alike.

It was always likely that the TouchPad would not sell as well as the iPad 2, but in fact sales were disastrous with only a few thousand units shipping in the first month. HP’s response was brutal. The day after the Pre 3 was launched in the UK, HP announced the cancellation of the entire line of webOS devices... forever. At this point, the TouchPad had been on the market for just 49 days and the Pre 3 had never even made it to the US.


HP immediately announced a fire sale of HP devices, slashing around 80% from the retail price. The result was that stock sold out almost immediately everywhere, any many retailers found their websites falling over under the sheet weight of traffic.

HP Veer and Pre 3

A strange situation developed – the TouchPad had become hugely popular device and to give HP credit, they supported it very well for several years. A decent range of applications were available and many people who were just looking for a cheap tablet found themselves very impressed by the elegant design of the webOS environment.

It didn’t take long for enthusiasts such as the crowd at Cyanogenmod to look at ways of porting Android to the TouchPad and it’s very high-quality hardware platform. As support for webOS began to wane, the only viable option was the sometimes complex process of installing a new operating system. But even today, these tablets are still viable devices if installed with a recent version of Android.

It was a dramatic end for Palm, and it was also a disaster for HP who had to write off the billion-dollar acquisition of Palm plus a loss of hundreds of dollars on each tablet and smartphone sold off at rock-bottom prices.

However, the story does quite end there. HP wondered what it could do with webOS, and after a great deal of deliberation they eventually sold it to LG where it ended up as an operating system in Smart TVs and other appliances. The Palm brand itself was bought by TCL (who make Alcatel-branded phones) who are looking at reviving it for a range of Android smartphones.*

So perhaps, it is just possible that the HP fiasco of half a decade ago isn’t the last time you might come across a Palm product..

* Just for another weird twist.. TCL use the Alcatel brand under licence from Alcatel-Lucent who dropped out of making phones, and that company recently came under the control of Nokia, another company that no longer makes phones. 

Motorola Xoom (2011)

Motorola Xoom (2011)

Announced January 2011

The Motorola Xoom was Moto's attempt at competing with the Apple iPad, a device that had been announced almost exactly one year previously. Announced at CES in January 2011, the Xoom was slightly better than the original iPad in terms of hardware specifications, and it was a bit cheaper.

It also introduced Android 3.0, which had been especially designed for tablet devices. On top of that, it was a sleek looking device, so you might have expected it to be a success. Unfortunately, the Xoom wasn't the success that Motorola had hoped.

The Xoom had a 10.1" 1280 x 800 pixel display, a 5 megapixel primary camera and a 2 megapixel secondary one on the front. Inside was a dual-core 1GHz CPU with 1GB of RAM. It was a little heavier than the iPad, but overall everything was at least as good as the Apple product, if not better.

Perhaps the software wasn't as polished as the iPad, but then surely it would appeal to the growing army of Android smartphone users? Lots of press coverage and advertising would surely help as well. Well.. not really, it turns out.

Over the time the Xoom was on sale, it shipped perhaps 1.5 million units or so. But over a comparable period, the iPad shipped 15 million units. But the Xoom wasn't alone in lacklustre sales - interest in Android tablets overall remained low. Market researchers could speculate as to the reason why, but perhaps it boiled down to the fact that the Xoom cost quite a lot of money.. and people just preferred to by an iPad with that cash instead.

Also, although the Xoom launched against the original iPad, the iPad 2 was announced in March 2011 which was thinner, lighter and faster than the original. This eroded the advantage that the Xoom originally had. The launch of the Xoom 2 in November 2011 brought a better product to market, but still it wasn't the breakthrough that Motorola had hoped. The Xoom 2 was Motorola's last attempt at a tablet.

Eventually, Android did start to make inroads into the tablet market.. but a lot of that is based on the availability of very cheap devices. But when it comes to high-end premium tablets, Apple are still king.

A Tale of Two Tablets: Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000 and BlackBerry Playbook (2010)

Announced September 2010

The concept of a “tablet” had been around for five years or so by September 2010, with the Nokia 770 pioneering the way with modest sales in 2005. However, the launch of the original Apple iPad in January 2010 really defined what people expected from a tablet, and the iPad rapidly went on to be a huge success.

Of course, other manufacturers wanted a slice of this market and two of the earliest competitors were quite similar to each other - the Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000 and the BlackBerry PlayBook. However, neither of these could match the success of the Apple product for somewhat different reasons.

Both the Galaxy Tab and the PlayBook shared similar form factors, each using a 7” 1024 x 600 pixel panel and coming in at about half the weight and footprint of the original iPad. Both devices were available in either WiFi-only or (eventually) cellular versions, but they both ran very different operating systems.

Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000

Samsung's first Android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000 was an Android 2.2 "Froyo" device (upgradable to Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”), which was basically just a straight port of the OS that Samsung had running on their smartphones. This version of Android met with criticism as it wasn’t really designed to run on a big-screen device such as a tablet, to the extent that Google developed the tablet-only Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” OS that addressed many of those shortcomings.

Unlike the iPad, the original Galaxy Tab was a somewhat bland affair which didn’t have much shelf appeal when it hit the shops shortly before Christmas 2010. Even so, you might expect it to sell in reasonable numbers... but bizarrely it was even more expensive than the iPad to buy, and the Tab stayed firmly on the shelves until Samsung started to discount it heavily.

Overall, the original Galaxy Tab was not a successful product, but Samsung stuck with it and made much better and more competitive devices. Although Apple is still the manufacturer to beat, Samsung have carved out a significant slice of the tablet market five years later.

On the other hand, RIM had taken a different approach with the BlackBerry PlayBook. Although BlackBerry makers RIM were riding high with their traditional smartphones such as the Curve and Torch devices, the operating system on those was ancient and it was never going to be suitable for a tablet device.

Instead, the operating system on the PlayBook was based on QNX, a real-time OS aimed at embedded devices that RIM had acquired earlier in 2010. But QNX wasn’t really a consumer-ready OS, and although it provided a solid platform to build on, it still meant that RIM had to create almost everything from scratch. All rivals Samsung had to do was port Android, this was much harder and it took seven months from the product announcement to units actually shipped in the Spring of 2011.

BlackBerry PlayBook (LTE version)

But when the PlayBook finally did hit the market, it was clear that it wasn’t ready. The operating system was extremely buggy, it had few applications of any real worth and worse still, it could not integrate with BlackBerry email which was the one killer application that RIM did better than everybody else.

Hundreds of thousands of PlayBooks were shipped to the supply chain, where they remained. Take-up of the PlayBook was close to zero, until RIM started to discount units very aggressively. However, PlayBooks clogged up the retail channel for years afterwards and indeed so-called “new” units are still available five years later.

Eventually the QNX-based OS on the PlayBook was developed into BlackBerry 10, which was launched with the BlackBerry Z10 in 2013. But RIM (now just called BlackBerry Ltd) had learned very little from the PlayBook, and sales channels became stuffed with Z10s that nobody wanted, leading to a billion-dollar inventory write-off.

BlackBerry never made another tablet, and by 2015 they are only just hanging on as a smartphone manufacturer. In fact, BlackBerry are now rumoured to be looking at moving to Android, which is really half a decade too late.

Although neither the Tab P1000 nor the PlayBook were a success, the 7” form factor actually was. In 2012 Apple launch the iPad Mini which was much smaller and lighter than the full-sized iPad of the time. And of course there are many, many Android tablets on the market today – but almost all of them are much cheaper than the iPad, which seems to be what consumers actually want.

Nokia 770 Internet Tablet (2005)

Announced May 2005

If you mention the word "Tablet" today then most people will immediately think of the Apple iPad or perhaps one of Samsung's many Android tablets. But ten years ago this month, it was Nokia that was pioneering in the early tablet market. Initially announced in May 2005 (but only shipping in November) the Nokia 770 caused quite a stir when it was revealed to the public.

The Nokia 770 broke with tradition in many ways. Firstly, at a time that Nokia's smartphones were all running Symbian, the 770 ran a version of Linux called Maemo. The 4.1" 800 x 480 pixel display may seem small by today's standards, but it was much bigger and better than any smartphone on the market. But perhaps the most significant thing was that it wasn't a phone, it couldn't make calls and to access the Internet you either needed to use WiFi or connect to another phone using Bluetooth.

Pairing a tablet with a Bluetooth phone was a slightly fiddly arrangement, but the 770 would work with pretty much any Bluetooth device that had a data connection. It also meant that you weren't lumbered with carrying around the tablet when you just wanted to carry a much more compact phone, and because the tablet and phone both had their own batteries then it meant that web surfing wouldn't drain your phone.

One striking thing about the Nokia 770 was the physical design, with a very retro-futuristic look, and a brushed metal reversible hard shell. Although the 770 was originally designed to be used with the integrated stylus, a software update made it easier to use with just a finger instead.

Maemo was a much more sophisticated operating system than Symbian, and it soon established a dedicated group of developers who starting porting apps from other Linux-based platforms. Out-of-the-box the Nokia 770 had a web browser, RSS reader, email client, some games and PIM functionality, but it wasn't too difficult for someone with a bit of technical knowledge to add more. 2006 saw a major software update which made the 770 a lot nicer to use.

Despite all the promise of a little Linux-based computer the hardware platform was very limited with a tiny 64MB of memory and 128MB of onboard flash storage plus an RS-MMC slot. The ARM-based processor was clocked at 252MHz, which wasn't very fast even then. Many of these problems were fixed with the N800 launched in 2007 and a number of other devices following.

Ultimately, Nokia could never quite successfully transition these niche devices into success in the smartphone market. The Maemo-based Nokia N900 was the first and last Maemo-based smartphone launched in 2009, and a catastrophic decision to try to merge Maemo with Intel's Moblin OS stalled the development of the product line with disastrous effects.

It's an interesting and inexpensive device for collectors, and although they are quite rare they tend to sell for less than €50.. although remember that functionality is strictly limited compared to a tablet of today!