Our friends at TownHall Investment Research (www.townhallresearch.com) believe that tablet PC sales will grow more rapidly than smart phone sales and will probably constitute a larger market within five years.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor

They have compiled a list of 24 tablets that are expected to become available between now and Q1′11. Among them are two 7-inch tablets from Acer (one using Windows 7 and the other using Android 3) and two 9-inch tablets from HP: the Windows 7-based Slate 500 scheduled for Q4 and the WebOS-based PalmPad scheduled for Q1′11.

Nokia’s 7-inch and 9-inch Meego-based tablets are due in Q4, and Samsung’s Android-based Galaxy Tablet is scheduled for a September 10th release. Verizon is planning its own Android-based, 10.1-inch Zpad for Q4 release at a price of $199, although that may be a contract-only price.

Augen’s 7-inch Gentouch 78 appeared in some Kmart stores and flew off the shelves at $150. It’s not clear whether the unit is once again in stock in some locations.

The well-hyped Notion Ink Adam, one version of which may have a Pixel Qi display, is scheduled for November 10, but Gerard Hallaren at TownHall believes Notion Ink needs more funding before it can bring the Adam to market.

Also on the TownHall list are Archos, Asus, Dell’s Streak (with only a 5-inch display), HTC (with a Google Chrome OS and a "greater than 7-inch" display), Lenovo, LG, RIM, Toshiba, ViewSonic, and Olive.

Not on the list is Cisco’s Cius, the much-anticipated enterprise-oriented tablet that’s not expected until Q1′11. There are insistent reports that Apple will have a 7-inch iPad model out at about that time.

All, or nearly all, of these tablets have (or will have) LCD panels. One intriguing possible exception, as we have said before in the context of eBook readers, is the Qualcomm MEMS Technologies (QMT) reflective color mirasol display with video-compatible response time. Prototypes have been shown for some time, and the latest interation, shown at SID in May, was impressive. QMT’s Jim Cathey has said repeatedly that a mirasol display (presumably the 5.7-inch, XGA size shown at SID) will appear in a product "from a manufacturer whose name you will recognize" this year.

Yesterday, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported that Qualcomm plans to invest another $2B to build a plant to make displays for electronic reading devices. The paper’s source was T.C. Gou, Chairman of Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink), which is QMT’s partner in Sollink, the JV established in 2008 to make mirasol displays for mobile handsets.

Sources cited by Digitimes said the plant would be Gen 4.5, as is the existing Sollink plant, and that equipment installation would begin in October 2011 at the Central Taiwan Science Park in Longtan. $2B for a Gen 4.5 fab? There may be a disconnect here, since $2B is more in the Gen 8 range than Gen 4.5, unless the Mirasol display is unusually difficult to build and requires special, and expensive, equipment.

What does QMT say? QMT Director of Marketing Cheryl Goodman Shwarzman told me yesterday via email, "We’ve not made any public announcements about fab expansion." Which isn’t a "no."