ViewSonic ViewPad 7x: The first 7 inch Android Honeycomb tablet to be announced

ViewSonic is a brand most people attach to the clunky CRT monitors of yore that only high end graphic designers bought because of their fantastic color reproduction capabilities, but recently they’ve also trying to enter the mobile scene. The first tablet ViewSonic launched, the gTablet, came out last November and packed an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip inside, but sadly ran Android 2.2, making it nothing more than a 10 inch smartphone sans 3G connectivity. Later this month at Computex ViewSonic is going to introduce a new tablet, the ViewPad 7x, and it’s the first 7 inch tablet we’ve heard about that comes with Android 3.0 Honeycomb right out of the box. We don’t have any pricing details, but we do know that it packs the same Tegra 2 as the gTablet, it also has HSPA+ connectivity so you can use it on the go, and it weighs 380 grams.

Considering the glut of 10 inch tablets that are on the market and are expected to come out over the coming months, it’s refreshing to see something in a smaller form factor. That being said, it’s not like you’re going to shove this thing inside your pocket and leave your house, which is why some of us don’t understand the phenomena that are tablets in the first place. But back to the ViewPad 7x, the bezel around the screen looks ridiculous and makes the device look larger than it actually should be. Depending on the price we’ll say whether or not it’s a safe buy, but be warned, if it’s over $450 then expect us to immediately start blasting this thing.

Later this year we’re going to hear about quad core tablets, and we’re going to get a glimpse at iOS 5 in less than a month at WWDC, so save your pennies and don’t buy a tablet just yet. Wait until the holidays.