NEC will launch new Android products

By Rob Coppinger A DUAL SCREEN tablet will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show by NEC, following its November release of the single display Cloud Communicator Lifetouch. The dual-screen tablet also comes under the Cloud Communicator Lifetouch banner and both tablets use an unspecified Android operating system, and have 7-inch LCD touchscreens, 3G and WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity plus a stylus for pen input. NEC also says that the dual-screen tablet will do "multi-tasking, with the ability to run different programs on each LCD screen", which it claims is an industry first. The apps for the Cloud Communicators can be found at the Andronavi online store. The fact that NEC has felt the need to use a third party store tells us two things, (a), that the tablets' OS won't be the highly anticipated tablet friendly Honeycomb, and (b), neither Communicator will have a phone function. Where tablets are also phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab, they have access to Google's Android marketplace, but if the device is not a phone it is not compatible with Android apps.