Not enough shopping days to Christmas
What does the average six to twelve year old want in their stocking this Christmas? The answer, according to a Nielsen survey, is an iPad.
Does this show how youngsters are leaving us behind when it comes to technology? These results come from a survey carried out by Nielsen in the USA, so British trends may be different. You should also know the kids were only being asked about 17 high tech products, so we don't really know if the iPad is anything like as popular as a Buzz Lightyear jet pack or a Zhu Zhu Hamster, only that it is more popular than the Xbox.
If you are thinking that an iPad at the top of the list and Xbox near the bottom shows that kids appreciate items with educational value, keep in mind that the only thing to fare worse than the Xbox was the E-reader. Teenagers were also included in the survey, and the top of the wish list in the 13 plus age group is a computer, closely followed by a TV set. The iPad comes fourth on the list and the e-reader moves up to a very respectable sixth.
Back in the UK, Dixons Group is reporting that one of its biggest selling items is the newly-released Galaxy Tab Android from Samsung. This is a tablet-format computer to rival the iPad featuring a seven inch touch screen, 16GB of memory, a 3 megapixel camera and running the Android operating system. Like the iPad, it is retailing around the £400 to £450 mark.
Both the Apple iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab are based on the same ARM processor chip. We should expect prices of tablet computers to fall over the coming months as competing models are released based around Intel's Atom chip set. Intel is indicating that up to 35 models are expected from 15 different brand names, including Dell, Toshiba and Asus.
21st December 2010