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$100 Android tablets with new chip coming, says Intel

Intel is planning a new chip that targets tablets as low as $100. Those products will run Android, the chip giant says.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
HP's Slate 7 is a $140 Android tablet. But it uses an ARM chip -- not Intel.
HP's Slate 7 is a $140 Android tablet. But it uses an ARM chip -- not Intel. Hewlett-Packard

Future Android tablets with Intel inside will approach two-digit pricing, packing a new -- as yet unannounced -- chip, Intel said Tuesday.

Upcoming Atom-based tablets will appear at the $100 price point, Chris Walker, general manager for tablet processors at Intel, told CNET today. Walker was echoing comments made earlier in the day by CEO Brian Krzanich.

Though Intel Atom chips run both Windows and Android, "the low price points should be Android," Walker said.

Hewlett-Packard has an Android tablet -- the Slate 7 -- that is priced at $140 but uses an ARM processor.

The future Atom (the launch date is unknown) will be different than the Bay Trail tablet processors that Intel is detailing this week at its annual chip conference. Those processors will land, for the most part, in tablets that compete in higher price ranges. And many of those will run Windows 8.1

One of the first Bay Trail tablets out of the gate is the Toshiba Encore priced at $329.