Motorola prepare Android tablet for 2011 release

Competition in the tablet market is set to be fierce in 2011, with mobile giant Motorola set to enter the fray with an Android-powered tablet early in the New Year.

Consumers are therefore soon likely to have the choice between Apple’s iPad, the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy, the forthcoming Blackberry PlayBook, a predicted HP Palm tablet, a rumoured array of Windows-enabled ‘slate’ products, and a Motorola device – if all current reports from the States are to be believed.

Indeed Motorola themselves have fuelled the speculation with a clever teaser video on YouTube entitled ‘Tablet Evolution presented by Motorola’, which traces back the history of the ‘tablet’ to the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Tablets (3200 BC) and the Stone Tablets of the Ten Commandments (1440-1500 BC).

The video ends with a couple of digs at the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy, before a bee is seen flying around what is presumably a veiled Motorola tablet. The presence of the insect could represent the buzz around the device or maybe a reference to the forthcoming Google Android Honeycomb operating system – which the Motorola tablet might run.

Android boss Andy Rubin demonstrated a prototype Honeycomb-enabled Motorola tablet at an All Things Digital mobile conference earlier in December.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting - via a rumour picked up from tech news website Pocketnow.com -  that Motorola has filed for a trademark ownership of the name Xoom, which could be the name of their forthcoming tablet.

In addition, Computerworld.com reports, “The Motorola tablet will boast a 10-inch, 1200-by-800 display. It will supposedly have a 1GHz Tegra 2 T20 processor along with 512MB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, plus support for an additional 32GB of external storage. Other anticipated specs include a 5MP rear-facing camera, a 2MP front-facing camera, an HDMI out port, and a gyroscope.”

All eyes will now be on The Consumer Electronics Show, January 6th – 9th in Las Vegas, where an official launch by Motorola could take place.