Sprint Plans 4G Tablet For 2011

Sprint has quietly announced plans for a 4G tablet to be released some time in 2011. In an interview cited but not quoted at Forbes, Paget Alves, Sprint’s President of Business Markets, said that they were planning to expand their 4G and tablet portfolio and embrace more operating systems than Android. What device she means by this is not clear, but somehow I doubt they’re getting the iPad.

There’s nothing beyond that news, which leaves us only speculation. 4G isn’t really something that RIM, Microsoft, or HP/Palm have a stated interest in, though I’m sure they’ll all want to upgrade eventually. If I had to guess based on nothing, I’d probably go with the Playbook, since they seem to be taking some risks on hardware. But that’s really just a shot in the dark. I don’t think it’ll be Windows 7, because come on. In all likelihood it will in fact be Android, but Alves mentioned other OSes simply as a by-the-way.

I suppose we’ll know more in a few months. Maybe we’ll be able to corner some Sprint people at CES and MWC and squeeze some info out of them.