back to article Huawei pitches 'first ever' 10in quad-core tablet

Reg Hardware Mobile Week This one is sure to interest Apple's lawyers: Huawei has introduced a 10.1in tablet based around a quad-core processor - the first time this has happened, the company claimed - and its front looks a lot like an iPad. Cue trade-dress lawsuit, surely? Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD tablet The MediaPad 10 …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    it would be available worldwide....

    ..... except in Germany!

  2. Fuzz

    Cost

    Looks great from the spec, but what's it going to cost?

    1920x1200 screen is great for Android, gives enough room for 16:9 movie @1080p + enough spare pixels for the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen.

    The only thing that annoys me about my xoom is that it won't play back h.264 at more than standard definition unless it's encoded in a very specific way. I don't need HD for watching on the tablet but it means that I need to transcode any HD movies I have so that I can watch them.

    1. TechnicianJack

      Re: Cost

      Probably cheaper than an iPad.

    2. Anonymous John

      Re: Cost

      I'd rather pay £100 less for WiFi only. I already have a Huawei MiFi thingie.

      1. DrXym

        Re: Re: Cost

        3G is just an excuse to slap an extra markup onto a device. The £100 markup that some devices charge is a rip off.

        Archos did it the right way - their tablet is wifi by default but it has a hatch which takes a USB 3G modem which is sold for a reasonable £50. You don't have to choose which model to buy, buy wifi and then buy the stick if you need it. I would expect android tablet owners are more likely to own an android phone in which case they should just tether the one to the other and save all the expense and screwing around with sims.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's black and curvy...

    Therefore looks like an iPad!?

    Someone warn Oprah she'll be getting a letter from Apple's lawyers!

    1. James Micallef Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: It's black and curvy...

      Curved edges aren't anything new to Apple, pretty much every laptop, notebook, netbook, tablet etc out there has curved edges to prevent / minimise damage. Pretty much every tablet is going to look like the iPad, and I equally can say that the iPad looks like pretty much every tablet out there

  4. Munkeh
    FAIL

    First ever?

    First ever 10.1 inch quad core android tablet? They need to do their research better...

    I know they are hard to find in stock and have QC issues but I'm sure this transformer prime I'm typing this post with proves them wrong.

    1. Gordon 10

      Re: First ever?

      I wonder if they have lost .1 of an inch somewhere? Especially given the different resolution.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      Re: First ever?

      <pedant>Isn't the Tegra3 a 5-core chip</pedant>

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: First ever?

      Well, technically Tegra 3 (which is what the Prime runs on) is a pentacore chip, so perhaps they're right ;)

  5. b166er

    Let's hope legal people around the world stop Apple from stifling competition.

    I, as a consumer, would like one of these Huawei tablets. I as a consumer, would never buy an iPad, so it makes no difference whether or not it looks like one.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Trademark rules exist for big companies ripping off smaller companies' IP as well as for smaller companies brazenly ripping off bigger companies' look and feel, and international law, remarkably enough, is not determined by b166er's purchasing preferences.

      I suspect that if Apple were to make an absurdly obvious copy of a small company's L&F, most of those who would thumbs you up would be getting in line to scream bloody murder. But trademark rules do not apply only to companies you happen to dislike. If you oppose them, be prepared to accept small, innovative firms being put out of business when their IP and branding grabbed out from under them.

      I guess if you'd accept the death of those businesses in exchange for saving ten bucks because some OEM can't be arsed to find any industrial designers in all of China, then good on ya.

      But I'm not on board with that. I run a tiny-but-high-profile business which is highly dependent on its product design image. This is true not just for marketing, but is critical for quality perception. I've already seen people think that the horrid quality of a certain doppelganger applies to my products, which is brutal as people tell their friends, "oh, [my company] makes crap!" and the friends never get a chance to see that it's not true.

      I may not be able to sue anyone myself, but at least the threat of litigation keeps the risk and barrier to entry high enough to determine or muffle most would-be copycats. If it were open season? Hell, there'd be a lot more than the one ripoff of my product that's out here now.

      Until you think of the second- and third-order consequences of the things you advocate, get off your high horse.

      1. Sean Timarco Baggaley
        Thumb Up

        ^^^^ This.

        The playing field needs to be level for all teams.

        Just because some particularly loudmouthed and opinionated people don't support the team that's currently winning, it does not follow that the rules are wrong. It's far more likely that your preferred team simply isn't playing as well as it should.

        Stop whining about how Apple are spanking their competition and start whining at that competition instead! Supporting a team means criticising it when it's doing something wrong, and slavishly aping the market leader instead of differentiating your products is wrong.

        Apple cannot possibly have the only good product designers on the planet. Others, equally as good, must also exist. So why aren't they getting the opportunity to compete with Apple on their own terms, instead of being forced to churn out endless "me-too" models by the dozen?

        THAT is what people should be complaining about. I own Apple kit myself, but even I'm willing to admit that Apple produce their best work when they're faced with genuine competition.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's no suprise...

    ...that the front looks like an iPad. Just look at the blatant ripoff they've done of the Intel Core2 picture with a Qualcomm logo badly photoshopped ontop of it. http://www.huaweidevice.com/worldwide/productFeatures.do?pinfoId=3135&treeId=3290&directoryId=5011&tab=0

    You won't see me with an Huawei device that's for sure.

    1. hexx

      Re: It's no suprise...

      hehehe, that's really bad PS job there

      1. Simbu
        Thumb Up

        Re: Re: It's no suprise...

        There's more...

        'shopped over the 'Apple thin device' hand... (quality MS Paint arrows in that image too)

        If cheap web sites mean better product R&D, why not?

  7. Gary F

    Better screen than most desktop PCs

    It will have 384,000 more pixels than the most common 22" to 24" desktop monitors on sale! These days most monitors are 1920x1024 with the choice of finding 1920x1200 models being comparatively limited and sold at a premium price. It's crazy-good to put that many pixels in a 10" tablet. Can you really tell the difference in quality between this new tablet's display and the current high res tablets with half the resolution? I mean, it's just 10" big, not 24". But I image an HDMI feed from it into a big TV will look phenomenal!

    1. Jedit Silver badge
      FAIL

      "A feed from this into a big TV will look phenomenal"

      Yes, because the quality of the display on a device has such a huge effect on the data being output from that device to another display.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Huawei fruit icon

    Is it just me or does the Huawei icon look like a bunch of bananas - surely infringing upon another fruit-based trademark.

    1. Simbu

      Re: Huawei fruit icon

      Not until you've taken a bite from it.

  9. DrXym

    Just asking to be sued

    Samsung discovered that ripping off the look and feel of an iPad is a good way to get sued. It looks like Huawei are pushing for their own lawsuit. Hopefully they've done their homework and have made the device *just* enough different that they can get past. Wouldn't stop Apple from harassing them for months though even if they ultimately prevail.

    I wonder why tablet manufacturers have the urge to do this. There are enough tablets in various shapes and designs to know there is no reason they have to ape an iPad

    Otherwise it looks like a very well specced device.

    1. Andrew James

      Re: Just asking to be sued

      I still dont get how they can sue for this. If its a tablet its little more than a screen and a shell. The screen needs a bezel around the edge so your thumbs arent hitting the screen when holding it. So from the front at least, they all look very similar.

      If someone was to do this and put a round button with a square printed in the middle somewhere in the middle of one of the bezel sides, fair enough - but without that, its just a tablet.

      If there is no apple on the back, seriously, where's the problem. Its functional design. If you dont want it to be ugly, its going to look fairly similar to an ipad. They all do.

      1. DrXym

        Re: Re: Just asking to be sued

        They can sue because that is what Apple does given half a chance. I expect if they did their argument would be the same as for the Tab, that the detailing of the corners, bezel, trim, general colour scheme resulted in a device which more than coincidentally happened to resemble an iPad.

        But it appears to be a very fine line of what constitutes infringement and what doesn't. Samsung produced a 10.1N model which managed to skate infringement with some relatively modest cosmetic changes to the trim and bezel.

      2. Skymonrie
        Thumb Up

        Re: Re: Just asking to be sued

        I wholeheartedly agree, how can you really make the front of a tablet stand out in the modern age...and be accepted? There's a good infographic about the design of mobile phones 10 years ago and now which highlights this trend.

        In part, it is due to what society likes more than what the manafacturers can produce; the keywords for design these days seem to be: clean, elegant, black...That kind of rounds down the options to a sad few for any designers of a device that is already little more than just a screen.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Coat

          Re: Re: Re: Just asking to be sued

          " the keywords for design these days seem to be: clean, elegant, black..."

          Hey, it worked for Will Smith...

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like