Hikari iFrame: Japan gets Android-powered, inexpensive tablet PC

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NTT, Japan’s biggest telecommunications company (its subsidiary NTT East, to be more exact) has unveiled the Hikari iFrame [JP] yesterday, an Android-powered tablet PC that’s supposed to be extra-easy to use and doubles as a digital picture frame. NTT East has already set up a dedicated product web site [JP] for the iFrame, marketing it as a lifestyle product of sorts.

The device features a 7-inch touch-panel display, an internal battery, a speaker, an alarm clock, a USB port and an SD memory card slot. And yes, it can be used to access the web via Wi-Fi. In an attempt to appeal to casual web users, NTT East says it will make heavy use of widgets that just need to be tapped to display various content like the weather, recipes, or the latest news.

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The Hikari iFrame will be released in Japan only (initially, at least) in the first half of fiscal 2010, which under the Japanese system means sometime between April and September next year. It will cost between $220 and $330, with NTT East saying the use of Android as the OS resulted in reducing costs by 20-30% per unit. The company is currently looking for test users residing in Japan, mainly targeting women in their 20s.

This video shows the tablet in action:

Via TechCrunch Japan [JP]