Much like Asus, LG Electronics is also interested in joining the tablet wars in early 2011. Unlike Asus, however, the world's third biggest handset vendor is only working on one device (that we know of).
The company is planning on launching an 8.9-inch tablet running Android 3.5 (codenamed Honeycomb), according to mk (via Engadget. The LG Pad will arrive in the first quarter of 2011 and will ship with a dual-core Tegra 2 chip inside.
Officially, LG is refusing to say anything about the news. LG's device will be rolled out in South Korea and overseas early next year, making it the first tablet PC for the South Korean technology giant. LG dropped a plan to introduce tablets based on Android 2.2 (codenamed Froyo), citing the need for an Android version more suitable for tablets.
The decision to use a later version of Android is important: version 3.0 (codenamed Gingerbread) and version 3.5 have yet to be released, but both of them are supposed to have tablet improvements built-in. Gingerbread is expected to be released before the end of the year and Honeycomb should arrive in early 2011. We expect that LG will begin testing its device with Android 3.0, send Google its feedback, and hope that version 3.5 will bring the improvements it needs.
LG is following in another company's footsteps: Lenovo is also holding back its US tablet plans until Honeycomb. We should be grateful that neither of them is waiting for Ice Cream.