Google Chrome tablet could hit market by Black Friday

HTC, the manufacturer of a range of popular smartphones, including the EVO 4G, is making a tablet computer for Google, and it could hit by Black Friday this November, just in time for the holiday rush. That's the word from the blog Download Squad, which says the HTC tablet will run Chrome OS, Google's forthcoming open-source operating system.

If the folks at Download Squad have their facts in order – their item is sourced to an anonymous insider – a Google tablet would provide a welcome alternative in the tablet market, which is currently dominated by the Apple iPad. According to Lee Matthews at Download Squad, the HTC-made tablet will be "heavily subsidized" by Verizon, and "substantially cheaper" than the iPad.

The Google tablet, Matthews continues, will be "based on Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform and sport a 1280x720 multitouch display, 2GB of RAM, minimum 32GB SSD, WiFi/Bluetooth/LTE connectivity, GPS, webcam, and possibly expandable storage via a multi-card reader." Translation: This computer would be packing a serious punch.

A Google tablet wouldn't be alone, of course – a slew of iPad challengers is expected to hit the market by the holidays. Among the most interesting of the new tablets could be the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is expected to be unveiled at the IFA 2010 consumer electronics show in Berlin. The Galaxy Tab will likely ship with Google's Android 2.2. operating system, and a snappy 1.2GHz A8 processor.