Did the iPhone 4 Inspire Quanta’s Android Honeycomb Tablet’s Design

At the Computex trade show, manufacturer Quanta was showing off a reference Android Honeycomb tablet design that it is hoping to license to other brand names to quickly take to market. The design itself looks stylish and attractive, with a two-toned rear finish that combines a smooth soft touch rubberized strip that surrounds the rear camera and a metal aluminum rear panel. The device has a number of ports, SIM card slot, and micro SD card slot along the sides. Nicole Scott from Netbook News notes that the tablet looks like a giant iPhone, and I can potentially see the similarity with the stainless steel band and curved rounded corners of the iPhone 4 resembling this 10-inch Honeycomb slate.

The display on the tablet looks phenomenal and Scott notes that it looks to be like a Super AMOLED display where blacks are really rich and colors are vibrant. The tablet’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

It’s unclear right now if Quanta has any companies signed up to take on this reference design. Given Apple’s recent battle with Samsung for releasing products with similar packaging and trade dress to its own iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, it’s unclear whether Apple would go after any company that does decide to commercialize this reference design and take it to market given the overall design similarities to the iPhone 4.

Overall, it’s an attractive offering from Quanta and appears to be solidly built. As the design is a bit blocky–similar to the iphone 4–it’s unclear if it would be comfortable to hold for long periods of time–the iPad and Xoom both have curved backs which may aid in ergonomics.