Rebecca Kuo, Tainan; Steve Shen

 

Tablet PCs rolled out by vendors in 2012 will not only see an upgrade in display resolutions in general but also a further diversification in display sizes, which will include 7-, 8.9-, 9.7-, 10- and 11.6-inch

The diversification in display resolutions and sizes comes as vendors are demanding upgraded specifications and designs in order to outstrip rivals in the increasingly competitive tablet PC market, said the sources.

In 2012, global tablet PC shipments are expected to grow 60% to over 95 million units, including 57 million iPads from Apple, 10 million from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, 9-10 million from Samsung Electronics and one million from Sony, the sources revealed.

Additionally, combined tablet PC shipments from PC vendors including Acer, Asustek Computer, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell combined are expected to top 8.5-9 million units and those shipped from handset vendors such as RIM, HTC and Motorola will reach 4.5-5 million units, the sources added.

The market also expects Apple to launch its 9.7-inch new iPad with a display resolution of 2048 by 1536, while non-iPad vendors will roll out 10.1-inch models with a resolution of 1920 by 1200. In addition, the average resolution of tablet PC panels will reach 200ppi (pixels per inch) compared to 150ppi currently, added the sources.