October Launch for Wikipad Gaming Tablet

GameStop has announced that its Wikipad gaming tablet will go on sale this October.

The tablet has been developed in a collaborative effort between GameStop and Wikipad. It is said to be fairly similar to Archos’ GamePad tablet but instead its buttons are in the form of a dock attachment rather than as a permanent part of the tablet.

The tablet carries a 10.1 inch display, a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. It has built in storage of 16GB as well as a microSD card slot for expansion. There is also an 8mp camera on the back and a 2mp camera on the front. The tablet will be powered by the newest Android operating system, Jelly Bean.

The device’s battery will last for 8 hours of video playback. However, it is not cheap; at $499 it is considerably more expensive than the $192 GamePad. However, customers who pre-order the tablet from GameStop will receive free full-length titles as well as access to games from Sony’s PlayStation Mobile Platform.

The competition between the Wikipad gaming tablet and the Archos GamePad will begin at the end of October when both devices go on sale. It will be interesting to see how sales compare to gaming giants Nintendo and Sony.