Punchcut put together a great analysis of how the tablet landscape evolved in 2011, including some interesting thoughts about niche players, and a perspective about what is to come.

“Manufacturers that ship stock Android devices will still have to compete on hardware features alone: cameras, storage, network support, battery life, screen size, etc. Manufacturers will still face the same issue of keeping up with new OS versions from Google. Without UI and significant feature differentiation to insulate them, manufacturers will be battered every 3 to 6 months by device announcements that are only just incrementally better. This environment means that to the tech bloggers, the press, and those they influence only one Android tablet will matter at any given moment: the latest.”

Link: The Great Tablet Flood (punchcut.com)