ICD Gemini: a tablet that’s getting it right

A rendering of the ICD Gemini

If you’re unfamiliar with the Canadian comedy troup Kids in the Hall and their excellent mish-mashed movie “Brain Candy” then I suggest you go rent it. If you have seen this cult gem them perhaps you can see how we identity with a certain character from the movie. Seeing all these tablets that come out every week with rehashed or just plain bad spec sheets make us go a little nuts. It’s like they just don’t get it. A tablet rich which hardware speed and features is like a pill that gives worms to ex-girlfriends. We just don’t understand how they don’t get it. Huhoo!

Well it looks like ICD gets it. They’ve just released the spec sheet for their Gemini tablet and it gets a whole lot right. First, it’s an actual slate tablet computer — not just a mobile internet device. It’s chalk full of processing power (with a NVIDIA 1GHz Tegra 2), plenty of plugs and features (like a expandable SD card slot, microUSB, forward-facing 2MP webcam, back-facing 5MP camera, GPS, replaceable 40Wh battery, USBs, ambient light sensor, FM radio, accelerometer, magnetometer and dockable charging). It has a 11.2-inch 1366 x 768 resolution (true 720p HD!) multitouch screen, Android OS, 512 DDR RAM, 4GB and up flash storage and 1080p video support. But what about the connectivity? It has a WiFi b/g/n (N! Finally someone is getting it! Huhoo!), 3G (including the ability to make cellular calls), Bluetooth 2.1, GPS and infrared communication (it can be used as a remote control as well).

Now it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. First, we don’t know when ICD might be releasing the Gemini and exactly how much it will cost. This tablet could be the most feature-rich device ever, but if it’s priced outside of consumer’s pocketbooks then it will fail. Also, we’re not fond of the terribly low 4GB starting storage or half gig of RAM. It seems a shame to put such limited storage on a device that can render crisp 1080p on the fly. That means you could load half of a Bluray movie onto the tablet to watch. The Gemini does feature SD card expansion (up to 32GB) but we’d like to see 16GB become the health “base model” starting point at least.

We’re glad to see that ICD is raising the stakes. Hopefully they’ve learned the ropes with their previous Vega and Ultra tablets. We’ll be very keen to find out.

Update: It looks like Stuff TV managed to grab and handfull of Gemini and post a few thoughts on it. They love the “blistering fast” speed, size and quality of the display and all the features. However, the Gemini was still very buggy (as it was a demo unit) and had some issues with Android. The good news to come from the story was that the Gemini should arrive in August of this year and cost about the same as an entry level iPad which places it in the $500-$600 range. There’s also talk that ICD is looking to subsidize the Gemini with mobile phone companies (much in the way they’re doing with T-Mobile and their Vega tablet). That could even further lower the price and include a cell phone plan (as the Gemini can make calls).

Source: Engadget