The Dixons electrical store group is big in the UK. It runs the Dixons web store as well as those iconic physical stores Currys and PC World.
Its "own brand" goods have been badged Advent for years. And, I must admit, for years I thought their Advent stuff was crap. In fact, it was crap for many years - cheap rip-offs marketed too late.
Then last year, a friend pointed me to an Advent netbook the group was selling. And it was excellent. In fact, it was a re-badged MSI netbook sold for a good £100 cheaper than its rivals. I never thought I'd do it, but I bought this Advent netbook and sort-of changed my opinion of Advent and Dixons.
Well....Dixons has announced its stores will be stocking a tablet computer from November 1 and it looks promising.
The Advent Vega will have a 10" touchscreen (the same as the iPad), will run the latest Android 2.2 Froyo operating system and a 1Ghz processor. So, it seems like at least a match for the Apple iPad. It's also got a camera, which the iPad doesn't.
But the big surprise about the Advent Vega is its price. £250 for a wifi version. That compares very nicely with Apple's £429 wifi-only iPad.
It seems the Vega will come with a removable 4GB SD card for memory. OK, the comparible iPad has 16GB built in. But, hey, SD cards are cheap so you could easily fill the Vega with 16GB or more for very little.
The Vega will also have a 7" screen sibling...but I think Steve Jobs was right, 7" is just not big enough...well, for a tablet anyway.
Also on November 1, Samsung will release its Galaxy Tab, which I really thought might be a serious rival to the iPad. But it won't be, because it's only got a 7" screen and it's been priced at £530 - the same as the wifi and 3G iPad. Same price, but much smaller screen. It will die a death.
Dixons says a wifi and 3G version of the Vega will be released next year...but there's no price for that yet.
The video above shows you the wifi-only version of the Advent Vega demonstrated by a Dixons person.
We'll have to wait to get our hands on it when it's released to know for sure, but there's just a chance that this could be a genuine iPad-killer.
Now...where's my nearest PC World........
PS: When I put this post on Twitter, I had a few replies asking about the "Next 10" tablet that the Next UK clothing store group will be selling. It's got a 10" screen and will sell for £180.
Well, apparently its price shows....it's underpowered and really not very good. Have a look at this.
PS2: It seems the Vega won't have the official Android Marketplace app store. Dixons are going to have their own spp store on it, but an Android App Store won't be on the machine til the next Android OS update - probably early next year. Is this a killer?
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