Expansys announced a sale date of May 5th in a pre-order advert for the tablet device on their website.

This release date would see the HTC device lag behind the iPad 2 tablet by a month, following the Apple device’s UK release next Friday, but experts are still predicting that the Flyer will be a serious contender iPad’s dominance of the market.

If this is to be the case HTC will have made some serious gains on their competitors on multiple fronts; uSwitch announced back in February that HTC’s Android powered smartphones had toppled Apple’s iPhone from the UK sales chart.

The HTC Desire smartphone now tops the charts, with its sister models the Desire HD and the Wildfire occupying second and third spots. The iPhone now languishes in 6th place.

The Flyer looks to develop the e-book technology made popular by Amazon’s Kindle reader, as well as the inclusion of a safe area for kids to read children’s books.

However, this feature – sure to make the device popular with parents and carers – is by no means the only card up the Flyer’s sleeve.

The Google Android supporting device comes equipped with a 1.5GHz processor chip, Flash support, OnLine gaming portal and 3G and Wireless options.

The HTC Flyer looks to be an exciting addition to the tablet market; roll on May 5th.

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This report is a contradiction to earlier indications that tablets supporting Windows 8 would begin to appear in the third quarter of this year, with Dell’s Streak tablet leading the way.

If Bloomberg’s report turns out to be true then Microsoft will have missed out on a big opportunity to make a serious stab at the tablet market, and will instead have essentially surrendered market dominance to Google and Apple.

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst for Gartner Inc, thinks that Microsoft are shooting themselves in the foot with this late release:

“If 2011 is the year of tablet wars, Microsoft will be awfully late suiting up for that battle,” he said. “It’s not a good position to be in; battle lines are being drawn, land is being grabbed, users are being evangelised and spending money.”

Bloomberg predict that an autumn 2012 release will require an enormous leap of faith from tablet manufacturers to support it, as it will be untested software featuring in devices likely to be up against the release of iPad3. Chances are it will also be a full version behind Google’s Android OS, which is expected to have evolved into v4.0 by that point.

Spokesmen for Microsoft were unavailable to comment.

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Carphone Warehouse, who struck a deal that gives them exclusive sale rights on the 3G version of the Xoom tablet, have announced that the item will be in stock in early April.

The Xoom has been placed in direct competition with the new iPad 2 device, and compares favourably with the Apple tablet in the specifications department:

It’s screen, for example, is slightly larger than that of the iPad, and boasts a slightly higher, 1280 x 800 pixel resolution.

Other head to head comparisons allow the Xoom to nose further ahead; Motorola’s device has a HDMI output and full HD mirroring on any HD screen able to support the resolution. The iPad 2, in comparison supports only XGA HDMI mirroring.

Crucially, the 3G version of Xoom will match the iPad on price, both items weighing in at £600. Carphone Warehouse have also announced that they will be bundling the device with a free charger dock worth £34.99.

This news comes as it transpires that the non-3G version of the Motorola Xoom will NOT be undercutting the iPad 2 and the two items will in fact be the same price.

The misunderstanding was caused after PC World erroneously published a page for Xoom WiFi only pre-orders, citing a price of £449.99. Motorola have now announced that this was only a provisional price and the device will now be £50 more.

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As tablet manufacturers ready their challenges to Apple’s dominance of the market, Asustek claim they have a “secret weapon” that will combat the iPad 2 on release.

Asustek have already launched four new tablets – the Eee Pad Transformer, MeMO and Slider and the Eee Slate – but have vowed that this is only the beginning of their challenge on the tablet market.

When questioned on whether the release of the iPad 2 will render these releases obsolete, Asustek chairman, Jonney Shih was understandably bullish:

“We already know some of the details of that device, such as what kind of processor they chose.” He replied. “We very carefully chose our tablet processor, the Nvidia Tegra 2. To really compete with it will take Apple sometime. You know, Nvidia is well known for graphics.”

Shih continued, bringing up Asustek’s contingency plan for 2011; a secret weapon to challenge iPad 2s dominance.

“We will also try to provide a “secret weapon”, something we have not shown at this time but closer to the launch time we will show,” elaborated Shih, cryptically.

Shih refused to be pinned down as to whether the “secret weapon” would be a new component or a new tablet, and instead diverted to talking about the importance that personal cloud computing will have in 2011, possibly hinting that this was an area Asustek would be developing this year.

As for the secret weapon, we may have to wait till later on this quarter before Asustek let slip any more information.

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Tablets running the MeeGo operating system will launch in the second quarter of 2011, according to sources close to Intel .

The company have made no noises regarding which products will be running the OS, only hinting that MeeGo tablets will appear in Q2.

Both Acer and Asus have previously expressed their interest in MeeGo and are expected to be named amongst the manufacturers of MeeGo tablets when the announcement is finally made.

The MeeGo operating system was born from a merger between Intel’s Moblin and Meamo, a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer and subsidiary of Nokia. The OS was then developed as a joint venture between Nokia and Intel for use with next-gen tablets, smartphones and netbooks.

Intel are also planning to launch their own app store to coincide with the release of MeeGo tablets, a necessary move if MeeGo is to compete with RIM and Apple.

MeeGo is Linux based and designed to run on Intel’s Atom platform. Intel are pinning their hopes on MeeGo as they attempt to make up lost ground on competitors, ARM, who now dominate the tablet market thanks to support from market-leaders, Apple.

Apple’s iOs is about to face a stiff challenge from Google’s Android operating system when Honeycomb launches in the next quarter; by time MeeGo hits its developers will be hoping to blow the market wide open.

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Processor manufacturers, ARM are expected to post pre-tax profits of £160m for 2010 – a 70% increase from 2009.

This explosion in profits has been attributed to the success of Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices, which use the Cambridge based company’s processor chips.

The full year figures – due to be announced on Tuesday – are also expected to show that sales of ARM processors hit £400m in 2010; £100 million higher than in 2009.

ARM’s chief executive Warren East, was unsurprised by the phenomenal success of his company’s products, stating that he equated the importance of ARM’s processors within devices to the role of “the heart within the body, or the engine of a car.”

ARM currently gain between 5 and 60 cents in royalties for each device sold with an ARM chip. This figure is expected to rise to $1 for high-end tablet devices in the next few years.

These figures follow the news earlier this month that Microsoft have opted for an ARM processor for the next generation of its Windows OS devices; a move that ends 25 years of Intel dominance in Microsoft machines.

Goldman Sachs analyst, Simon Schafer predicted that this coup could land ARM a 45% share of the computing market by 2015, including an 85% dominance of tablet devices.

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Experts have predicted that 2011 could be the year of the Android tablet, as the market braces itself for a deluge of incoming devices.

Asus, Toshiba, LG, Samsung and Motorola are all developing Android based tablets in a concerted effort to smash the iPad’s dominance in the field.

Apple COO, Tim Cook adopted a “points-on-the-board” stance when countering these predictions;

“[Current Android tablets] are “scaled-up smartphones” – that’s a bizarre product in our view.” He said. “In terms of next generation; there’s nothing shipping yet, so I don’t know. Today they’re vapour; however we are not sitting still. We have a huge first mover advantage.”

Apple’s “first mover advantage” cannot be underestimated; 7.33 million iPad devices were sold in the final quarter of 2010 alone. But this does not dent the speculation that something big may be brewing elsewhere in the market.

Glyn Moody of H-Online highlighted the “locked down attitude” of Apple in producing their iPad and iPhone devices, contrasting this to the proliferation of Android smartphones available, and of specifically designed Android tablets on the way.

“There is only one iPhone, giving users only a limited choice of handsets, and that pricing is set by Apple.” Moody writes. “For markets outside the US, particularly in developing nations, that’s a big issue. It means that the iPhone will never be a mass market item, bought in billions; smartphones running Android will.”

Moody also pointed out the proliferation of the word “Android” – spelled out in English characters – amongst the Chinese characters of Newpad.cn, a Chinese site devoted to the tablet market, as well as rushes on pre-orders of Android tablets in the Far East; one of the most valuable markets in the world.

Android may have some catching up to do, but they are in a prime position to do it.

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Tech blogger John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, reported that a prototype iPad exists, capable of handling 2048 x 1536 pixels.

But what is retina display? Well, basically it’s a screen, but a very good one, with a 326dpi resolution. This is the upper limit of pixies discernable to the human eye.

In other words, it is the best screen possible, until we evolve better eyes.

This display is already available for the iPhone 4, but there has been some discussion as to whether it is possible to reproduce this level of pixels with larger screens, and it appears Apple are still having trouble.

While rumour mill chatter seemed to suggest that the retina display screen was a nailed on feature for the upcoming iPad 2, it seems increasingly unlikely that this will be the case.

“I would wager heavily that the iPad 2 will not have retina display.” Gruber continued, “it seems perverse to begin speculating about the ipad 3, so I’m going to file “retina display for the iPad” away until 2012”.

So, it looks likely that the iPad 2 will remain at the humble 1024 x 768 pixel resolution, but “retina display for the iPad” is in the pipeline.

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New sales figures show that Acer’s PCs shipped 2.1 million units in the U.S during the fourth quarter of 2010.

The study, carried out by IT research and advisory firm, Gartner, identified this as representing a 11% share of the market, a marked reduction from the 15% share enjoyed by Acer in the same period of 2009. Apple are now only 1.4% behind Acer in the race for PC dominance.

Gartner also discovered a 6.6% fall in PC sales as a whole in the U.S, so Acer now have a smaller share of a smaller market.

Speculators have hinted that this may be to do with usual netbook customers turning their attentions to tablet devices, specifically Apple’s ipad.

Further information to make Acer quiver; U.S shipments of Apple’s Mac PCs actually grew in the fourth quarter of 2010, experiencing a 24% boost in sales compared to the same period of 2009. Apple have been quick to announce that this impressive figure doesn’t even include sales of iPad devices.

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