A little less than two years after Nokia Corp. first promised to develop “special tablets” to be better positioned to compete against Apple, Asustek, Amazon and Samsung, the company continues to talk about its media tablet plans without any giving out any details. At present the firm is studying Microsoft Corp.’s experience with Surface media tablets and is mulling pros and cons of 7”- and 10”-class slates.

“We have not announced tablets at this point, but it is something we are clearly looking at very closely. We are studying very closely the market right now as Microsoft has introduced the Surface tablet, so we are trying to learn from that and understand what the right way to participate would be and at what point in time,” said Stephen Elop, chief executive officer of Nokia, at a press conference in Australia, reports the Financial Review web-site.

The market of media tablets has become a lot broader than it used to be just three years ago when Apple introduced its original iPad 9.7”. Nowadays there are at least three classes of display sizes as well as three operating systems suitable for tablets, there is also a broad choice of both high-performance and low-cost system-on-chips for media tablets.

Officially, Nokia would consider both Google Android and Microsoft Windows platforms for its tablets, but since Windows provides cross-platform experience with Windows Phone and Xbox Live, it is more than likely that the Espoo, Finland-based company will stick to it.

“We would consider any option [Android or Windows]… It is important to note that the opportunity for companionship is something that any user is looking for. So, when you think about the Lumia 920, running on Windows Phone, having a Windows tablet or PC or Xbox is something that will give us the opportunity to have a pretty integrated experience. Our first focus on what we look at is clearly in the Microsoft side,” said Mr. Elop.

Late last year a rumour on the Internet suggested that Nokia would unwrap its first tablet in early 2013. Nokia’s tablet was projected to run Microsoft Windows RT operating system and be based on an ARM-compatible multi-core system-on-chip. The device is expected to be equipped with 10”-class screen akin to that of Surface RT media slate (which means 1366*768 resolution that is considerably lower compared to leading-edge Apple iPhone 4 or Google Nexus 10”). The media tablet itself should be generally similar to competing solution from Microsoft, but Nokia plans to offer a special case that integrates an additional battery and a hardware keyboard, which will make it easy to transform the Lumia slate into a laptop. Belkin offers similar gadget for Apple’s iPad and iPad mini.

In case Nokia actually has plans to unveil a tablet in early 2013, then the company will likely make the announcement at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February. It is unknown when does Nokia plan to start selling its own tablet.

Tags: Nokia, Windows 8, Windows RT, Microsoft