After being the center of attraction for media, users, Windows enthusiasts and others, Windows 8 will finally be out this year and with this curiosity to know what tablet manufacturing companies will have their names added with it has also increased among all!

So, any idea which companies will be tagged as Windows 8 tablet makers once the new Windows hit the market this year? Well, there are number of popular manufacturers that will get to included in the long list of tablet manufacturing companies, some of these are HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asus which will come up with their Windows 8 tablet sometimes in October this year.

The other names that came into limelight for working on their own set of Windows 8 tablet to be introduced in the earliest possible part of 2013 happen to be Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, and Lenovo.

Well, as far as Dell is concerned, it has been keeping quiet about its plans for coming up with its tablet. It did launch the Dell Streak 10 tablet based on Android Honeycomb last year but it kind of kissed goodbye to it soon.

There’s a somewhat similar story about HP. It did land up into tablet market but couldn’t taste much success with its HP TouchPad which did gain popularity but it couldn’t last that long.

Interestingly, both the companies got ready to try out their luck in the tablet market once again with Windows 8 tablets.

Sony has finally come up with the dispatch of the VAIO S-series which it brought out publicly at the IFA in August along with the upgrading of other notebook ranges. 15.5 inch laptop VAIO S-series is an addition to the series that the company started overhauling since May, improving the portability, power efficiency, and performance. Quite similar to the 13.3 inch version that came up in the earlier part of the year; this new system will also offer you a choice of equipping it with any second generation Core i3, i5, or i7 processors.

All the mentioned processors come along with integrated graphics engine of Intel, however their augmentation with an optional AMD Radeon HD 6470M 512MB or 6630M 1GB is possible. For playing games, even the normal ones, you may feel the need for a discrete chip as the display of 15.5 inch offers a native resolution of about 1080p. One can have the system with a RAM of 4, 6, or 8GB and storage options starting from single hard drives to dual 128GB, 256GB, and even 512GB solid state drives.

This 15.5 inch VAIO S again offers what the 13.3 inch model has got with it, i.e. it houses a DVD or Blu Ray drive. The internet connectivity hasn’t got anything new or out of the box thing to offer but has gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI & VGA-out, WiDi 2.0, one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports. It is possible to augment the internal battery with the help of a sheet battery. In other goodies that it promises, you get a backlit keyboard, a built in HD webcam and Mic. The starting price for the laptop is $1000.

Sony has not only come up with VAIO S, it has also brought some of its already existing product lines by making some updates in them. The VAIO C now has a Core i7, VAIO E gets you a Core i5 and the VAIO F as well as L series now come packed with second generation Core processors and at the same time VAIO SA, SB, and SE series will now be available in red color. Along with all these and other changes, VAIO customers have one more piece of good news that from this coming Thursday, October 6, there will be Music Unlimited plan for free for six months.

With the steady coming up of a plethora of tablets, Sony, Acer, and NEC are some of the names that have just come up with fresh announcements. First on the list, Sony is soon to launch its latest consumer slate; it will be a Honeycomb-based Tablet S of 9.4 inches. The boring sounding slate offers those silicon inner parts that are available with most of its Android based competitors, i.e. a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2.

Coming to its hardware parts, you’ll find it offering a “TruBlack” display of 1280X800, front & back mounted cameras, as well as an SD card reader; however, it is notable that some of the reviewers have found that the one can’t play any media from the SD card directly. If anything really makes the Tablet S an interesting and unique device, it is its sloped shape measuring between 0.3 and 0.8 inches, which is believed to be taken from its inspiration from a folded magazine.

While discussing its software, it avails you with a kind of PlayStation emulator that comes along with a custom universal remote app that enables you to control the TVs from Sony, Blu-ray players, and other similar compatible devices. Its battery life is found to be lesser than that of the iPad2 or Galaxy 10.1, by being merely 8.35 hours. The 16GB model will be priced at $499 and the 32GB models will be available for $599 and will be available within a few weeks.

Acer and AT&T will be coming up with a 4G (HSPA+) tablet this year, as they had promised. This Sunday, September the 18^th, the Iconia Tab A501 will be launched in US and will be available in two versions. One will be a 16GB device at a price of $330 when purchased with a contract for two years or at an unsubsidized amount of $500f. The other version will be a 32GB device at $550 sans contract. It is believed that most of its specifications are same as those of the company’s Iconia Tab A500.

On the other hand, NEC has declared that it will be rolling out a 10.1 inch 1280X800 IPS paneled Wintel device offering 1.5GHz Atom and SM35 Express chipset, RAM of 2GB, storage of 64GB, Windows 7 Home Premium, two USB ports, HDMI-out, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.  The LaVie Touch will be available in Japan for 94,500 Yens which is equivalent to $1,225. It will be accompanied with a DVD drive, a keyboard, and mouse.

The news of Sony’s working on tablets this year has already hit almost all the shores, but there’s a new bit of information related to the Sony’s device that was earlier known as S1. So the latest happening is that this device is reported to have got a changed name, it is now S, and its time to see the light of the world is approaching near as it is believed to be getting released in the first fortnight of September.

Sony made its two tablets, namely S1 & S2 official right in the month of April with a promise of releasing it in the fall in a press event held in Tokyo.

The Sony Tablet – S offers a 9.4 inch screen, a front facing camera of 3 MP and a rear sided shooter of 5MP. It is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 SoC, provides wireless connectivity with the help of Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G. Most interesting thing it offers is the IR port for AV controls including Sony’s range of Bravia televisions along with the other devices that support the standards set by Digital Living Network Alliance.

The tablet will be available with the support for Android 3.1 but it has the provisions for being upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich, ones it is available, which is believed to be available by October. Users will find several accessories similar to the ones offered by iPad.

Just a few months back, the price for this Wi-Fi enabled Sony Tablet S was guesstimated to be $600, but now it seems that Sony will lower down its price in order to compete with the price offered by Apple’s device.

As Apple has been ruling the tablet market and this has made it really tough for the other competing brands to taste the wine of success, most other brands are forced to lower down the prices. Even HP had to discontinue their WebOS based TouchPad just after the device completed its 49 days on the market leading to a liquidation of the already existing stock of TouchPad at once. And many retailers even started offering the 16 GBa nd 32 GB tablets for just $99 and $149.