ViewSonic ViewPad 4 is the company's compelling Android debut

ViewSonic promised screens on their gadgets "from 4-inch to 65-inch" before the CES show, and are keeping the vow by announcing the ViewSonic ViewPad 4, their take on all phones Android. It runs Android 2.2 Froyo, while the update to Gingerbread is to come at a later time.

The ViewSonic ViewPad 4 has a 4.1" capacitive touchscreen display with 480x800 pixels of resolution. It gets its mojo from a 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset with 512MB of RAM - the same one that is in the HTC Desire HD, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, as well as the PlayStation Phone, so performance won't be an issue. The chipset enables you to record 720p HD video with the 5MP camera, and also to stream it via the mini-HDMI port present. The usual suite of connectivity options is here as well - GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The price and availability of the ViewSonic ViewPad 4 are yet to be announced, and we are certainly seeing a trend in ViewSonic to name all its devices with a mobile OS ViewPad. The company also used the occasion to showcase again its ViewSonic ViewPad 7 Froyo tablet which we reviewed not long ago, and found lackluster because of the 600MHz chipset, as well as the ViewPad 10, which dual-boots Windows 7 and... Android 1.6, for a yet unknown reason.

The ViewSonic ViewPad 4 seems a pretty compelling offering on paper, both in terms of design, and specs, and ViewSonic says in the press release that pricing will entirely depend on the carriers, so there is a chance it will be sold subsidized as well.

source: ViewSonic