iPad challenger Adam's release getting closer

IDG News Service - After wowing onlookers at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, the highly anticipated Adam tablet is out of the experimental phase and could become available to users soon, perhaps by the end of this year.

Bangalore-based Notion Ink, which makes the tablet, said Thursday in a blog entry that the company is aiming to submit the device to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for certification by the second week of November.

The product's release will depend on how long the certification takes, wrote Rohan Shravan, founder of Notion Ink, in the entry.

The Adam tablet is known to be equipped with advanced hardware, including Pixel Qi's transflective display and Nvidia's fast Tegra 2 chip. The Pixel Qi display can absorb ambient light to brighten screens, which could help reduce power consumption to extend the battery life of tablets. The Tegra 2 chip gives the tablet the capability to play back full 1080p high-definition video, versus the 720p video Apple's iPad is capable of.

The tablet could be priced between $399 and $498 and come in four models depending on the screen and wireless connectivity, Shravan wrote. Models will ship with either Pixel Qi or traditional LCD screens, and include Wi-Fi and/or 3G wireless connectivity.

Shravan said that launches in other countries depend on the number of developers collaborating on application development for the device. The device's profitability doesn't lie in the hardware but around its ecosystem, Shravan wrote.

"When the best hardware can be clubbed with a massive ecosystem, you are talking about a revolution," Shravan wrote.

The device will be available through an online store.

The "world is not small when it comes to shipping, but we will try to reach wherever you are," Shravan wrote.