Notably the whole new terms for devices between Phones and PCs reach the maximum confusion, and there is no clear border in the definitions, so they're likely to overlap. So let's see...
Displays:
Featuring anything from from 4 to 12+ inches, they can be non-touch, or touch. Then the touch ones can be Capacitive, Resistive, Surface Acoustic Wave and a bunch of other strange technologies. From these the Resistive is pretty popular since it supports for multi-touch screens. Check Wikipedia
CPU
powered by a x86, ARM or imitation chip, you can also find of everything that will influence, of course, the performance of your device but also the battery life, the Operating System and all the applications to be run. Nevertheless here a new story begins, which we extend next.
Operating System
Let's present the traditional scenario first:
-Small device -> ARM processor -> proprietary OS / Chrome / Windows CE
-Larger/Work device -> x86 processor -> Windows / Linux
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If you still believe it, then forget it. Here the things get really complicated!The latest days I've seen of everything, with a thousand chinese companies creating of everything with every kind of processor, and of course every kind of O.S. running on it.
Some curiosities:
A cheap laptor with an ARM processor running Android.
.
It's not Intel, it's not AMD, neither VIA... It's Loongson! A x86 compatible CPU being developed in China!
And... 5 inch tablet (therefore Ultra Mobile PC - UMPC), which throttles a 1,1GHz Atom
In the end, can can be loaded with all kind of stuff... This is my personal favorite part!
Gadgets
Connectivity: USBs, RS232, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/XXX, ITU GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA/UMTS/HSPA+, Bluetooth, even WiMAX, IRDA, Ethernet...
Extras: GPS, 1D/2D/Barcode reader, RFID and whatever you can imagine to be integrated...
And of course, some resistive versions intended for the professional use, that simply would cost as many times as the amount of plastic around..
