Nicole Scott caught up with one of new breed of larger tablets during CeBIT last week, getting hands on with the forthcoming Ramos i12, an 11.6 inch tablet running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on Intel Atom.
Few Android tablets on the market venture beyond the 10.1 inch screen size barrier. There are one or two notable exceptions, the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 launched at CES earlier this year being an excellent recent example. It is predicted that 2014 will hail the arrival of several larger Android tablets that sell themselves as being comfortable with everyday productivity tasks, belying the age old adage that tablets are great for content consumption, less so for content creation.
The Ramos i12 follows the launch of the Ramos i10 tablet, and is in fact an 11.6 device that (similarly to the Pro 12.2 and other larger tablets) is essentially an attempt for tablets encroach further on the notebook PC segment. The screen itself is a classy looking 11.6, Full HD IPS display. Under the hood we find Intel’s Clover Trail+ platform in the shape of an Intel Atom Z2580, a 32-bit 2.0GHz processor backed by 2GB of DDR2L and 16GB of internal storage. The two cameras are 5MP on the rear, 2MP on the rear while you’re getting mini DisplayPort for connecting a 2nd display and plenty of connectivity with a micro USB port and microSD card reader. The build quality is pretty impressive with a sleek aluminum chassis, which may explain the slightly hefty 765 grams weight.
One way in which China-based Ramos is hoping to differentiate itself from the competition in this space, is with a customized Android UI that offers a split screen function. This means users can get the most from all the pixels that 1920 x 1080 will give you. As you can see in Nicole’s video, running apps side by side in split screen mode really does make sense on a device of this size, and may be a valuable weapon in luring consumers away from their notebook PCs. To really succeed however, it’s arguably vital that Ramos can also add a keyboard dock, as many users will find touch-screen typing a bridge too far.
