Re Sony's dual-screen Tablet P:

"the clam-shell tablet runs a special version of the Android Honeycomb operating system that allows for dual-scren-tailored applications [sic]

To which Craig Grannell responds:

Which I’m sure devs are just going to flock to, because if there’s one thing devs love, it’s fragmentation and designing apps specifically for an unproven device that’s probably going to vanish from the face of the planet within a few months.

Actually, has anyone seen anyone using this thing? In real life?

"However, as with all other tablets based on Google’s Android platform, its weak point is software. The tablet-oriented Honeycomb version of Android on the Prime isn’t as slick or smooth as the iPad’s operating system, though the Prime’s potent processor makes it more fluid than is typical on such Android devices. And Google’s Android Market offers only a small number of tablet-optimized apps, compared with 140,000 for the iPad.

"In addition, the Prime lacks access to a large, unified ecosystem of music, videos and books, unlike the Apple or Amazon’s Kindle Fire. It does offer Google’s new music store, and a movie-rental service. But, when I tried to rent two movies, neither would play."

The keyboard is the best element of it, apparently. So, if you want a $648 netbook running Android, here you go.

Ian Fogg: "A new version of Android will be available in November, initially on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Much of the analysis of this Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android is focused on the implications of it running on both smartphones and tablets, where older versions of Android ran on one or the other (1), as well as shiny new gimmicks such as face recognition to unlock a handset.

"This unification of smartphones and tablets is a red herring. Other things matter much more for Android.

"Android tablets are failing in the market, while Google’s smartphones sell in enormous numbers. This is a major issue for Google."

Thoughtful.

"Apple’s iPad may still be sitting pretty at the top of the consumer tablet charts, but questions still remain over whether Android 3.x Honeycomb really has been a sales failure so far. Google and its manufacturer partners are yet to announce official sales figures for tablets running Android, leaving us dependent on supply chain rumors and guesstimates. Android developer Al Sutton reminded us, though, that with a little math we could get an estimate of quite how many Honeycomb slates are in the wild. The number? Roughly 3.4m."

Based on the 190m Android devices activated, and data from the Android Developer site.

As has been pointed out by commenters here, this doesn't tell us about tablets running 2.2 or 2.3. But pretty much every tablet released in the West since January has been running Honeycomb.

James Kendrick is an Android fan, but not a Honeycomb fan: "I have been all over the Android platform since the first phone hit the scene. I saw the potential of Android on phones and have followed its evolution through Froyo, Gingerbread, and now Honeycomb.<br />
"My current phone is the Gingerbread-packing Nexus S 4G (which I dearly love) and my original Galaxy Tab (also running Gingerbread) has more miles on it than my car. <br />
<br />
"I have used more tablets with Honeycomb than anyone I know, and after hundreds of hours of use I still find Honeycomb tablets to be totally frustrating to use."

"Google's much-anticipated tablet operating system, Android 3.0 Honeycomb, made its splash in late February with the launch of the Motorola Xoom. Few Honeycomb-optimized apps were available at launch, but no matter: The expectation was that they'd follow soon after. Why wouldn't they, given the ever-growing popularity of Android?<br />
"But instead of an explosion of Honeycomb apps, the fuse burned down to the powder keg...and then nothing happened. Four months later, we're still waiting: The number of Honeycomb-optimized apps remains in the low hundreds. By comparison, there are over 100,000 apps optimized for the iPad.<br />
"So, what gives?"<br />
<br />
Interesting exploration of what's behind this lack of excitement.

"Don’t get me wrong: Honeycomb 3.0 on the Galaxy Tab is still buggy as hell. Sometimes I feel like the browser is a game — tap the wrong thing, and you’ll suddenly jump to the bottom of a webpage, or all animations will get sluggish. Even the 3.1 update, which I just tried out on my Xoom and will be available for the Galaxy Tab in a few weeks, doesn’t seem to have fixed all the performance kinks. And Android Market still appears to have fewer than 100 applications optimized for the tablet form factor.<br />
"But I think that will change soon."<br />
<br />
This must be some strange new meaning of the word "soon" that we're not familiar with. Then again, they handed out tablets to everyone at Google I/O. Didn't they do that with Google TV? And look how that's turned out. Oh.

"the XOOM is an excellent piece of hardware. The build quality is fantastic, and it has a powerful dual-core nVidia Tegra 2 chipset with 1GB of onboard RAM, a brilliant 10.1″ 1280×800 LED display and high-resolution cameras in front and rear that exceed that of the iPad in terms of raw capability, at least on paper.<br />
"There’s only one problem. The software on the device as shipped is complete and utter beta-level crap."<br />
<br />
Harsh, really.