Many tablets were announced or shown at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, most of which were based on Arm designs. However, a few tablets based on Intel chips also made an appearance.

Tablets, which are also called slates by PC makers, are handheld devices with touch screens slightly larger than those of smartphones. The devices allow users to surf the Internet, play games, view movies or read e-books. Dell showed a tablet during a press event, but declined to talk about the hardware inside the device.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a tablet made by Hewlett-Packard that runs Windows 7. HP declined to comment on the hardware inside the tablet, though the company's chief technology officer, Phil McKinney, in an interview said the chip was based on the x86 architecture. PC maker Viliv also showed a tablet running on Intel's Atom Z-series processor.

Intel faces an especially big challenge from Nvidia, which at CES launched the low-power Tegra 2 processor based on an Arm design.

Nvidia also showed off many tablets based on its latest Tegra 2 processor at its booth: Innovative Converged Devices and T-Mobile exhibited Vega tablets with multiple screen sizes, and a concept Asus tablet was also on display. Nvidia said Tegra 2 is targeted at devices with 5-inch to 15-inch screens, and the dual-core processor can play back 1080p high-definition video while conserving battery life.