Blogs @ herald-dispatch.com: Digital Thingamajigs: iPad alternatives?

I was planning on making this a blog about all of the current and/or potential iPad alternatives available. But, after searching the Web for a few hours on the topic, I should make this a post on how difficult it is to find an alternative right now.

While searching the Web for alternatives, it’s difficult to find information on when they will be available or find a retailer to buy them. The release dates on these tablets are constantly changing and the field is becoming so expanded, it's hard to narrow it down to a few viable options. If competitors want to get serious about competing with Apple, then they need to get serious about marketing — in every format possible: TV, newspapers, Internet, viral and so on.

Make no bones about it: The iPad is everywhere. Apple has put a lot of effort in pushing its revolutionary, “magical” tablet to the masses. And it has worked. It took only 28 days for Apple to sell 1 million units of the original iPad. In nine months of 2010, Apple sold 15 million units, according to Apple’s own sales figures. And analysts expect the iPad 2 to outsell that for 2011.

And while much of the buzz out there is still surrounding the iPad 2, that is starting to change. The number of competitors out there seems to grow every week; and there are some tablets cropping up that can give the iPad 2 a run for its money. And depending on who you ask, any one of these could be the “iPad killer,” but the verdict is still out. So, here are just a few — a very small taste — of those alternatives getting buzz around the blogosphere ...