a01sh
Latest
Sharp to discontinue original Galapagos e-readers, 7-inch species survives
We're raising our glasses to the original Galapagos e-reader this morning, because Sharp has decided to discontinue it. Today, the manufacture announced that it will stop taking orders for its 5.5- and 10.8-inch Android tablets on September 30th, just nine months after they first launched. A company spokeswoman, however, confirmed that Sharp isn't leaving the market altogether, as it plans to continue churning out the 7-inch A01SH that launched last month. The Japan-based firm is confident that "the market for electronic books will continue to expand," but decided to terminate its older slates because they've already "fulfilled the purposes that they were designed for." Sharp declined to disclose sales figures for the doomed devices, though local media outlets are reporting that they may have been squeezed out of the Japanese market by the iPad -- a decidedly Darwinian explanation.
7-inch Sharp Galapagos A01SH tablet sees formal introduction, hitting the US 'this year'
How much is that tablet in the window? The one with the 7-inch screen and Android 3.2? Hard to say, but it might be the Sharp Galapagos A01SH you're looking at. The slate, announced in earnest today, should fit comfortably betwixt the 5.5- and 10.8-inch variants of the lineup that are also expected to arrive sometime before the end of the year. The A01SH is accompanied by an NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core CPU with 1GB of RAM, a WSVGA display with 1,024 x 600 resolution, 8GB of internal memory alongside microSD support, 5MP / 2MP cameras along the back and front, and 7.5 hours of battery life. At a thickness of 12.9mm, it's not as thin as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it's no Toshiba Thrive, either. The tablet should reach stores in Japan by the end of the month, but the only timeframe given for a US release is before the ball drops in Times Square -- perfect timing for anyone who wants to ring in 2012 snuggled up to a new gadget.
