Abhinav Lal

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Posted on 30-09-2010

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Sharp has announced the Japanese December launch of an e-book service and two e-reader style Android tablets that will be branded Galapagos. The service would include over 30,000 books, newspapers and magazines, and will be expanded to include movies, games and music next year.

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The two tablets will be meant for two different platforms, where the 10.8-inch tablet will be meant for the home, and the 5.5-inch tablet will be a mobile version. The tablets are named Galapagos in homage to Charles Darwin and the Galapagos Islands, as they will apparently evolve with software updates.

The Sharp tablets will only be Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), with no 3G options. The 5.5-inch tablet will sport a 1024 x 600 pixel LCD screen, and the 10.8-inch tablet will have a 1366 x 800 pixel screen. The tablets will support the XMDF e-book format, as well as a XMDF converter for other documents. The Galapagos tablets will be available in red, silver and black. Sharp says it’s confident it will be able to sell approximately 1 million units in 2011.

The Galapagos tablets will feature an Automatic Scheduled Delivery Service apart from an embedded social network service, rich graphic capabilities, and as mentioned before, an Android interface. Sharp will also be launching the tablets internationally, and is currently in talks with Verizon Wireless.