Sharp’s 10.1″ Mebius Pad has a crazy 2560×1600 display

Sharp’s introduced a Windows 8 tablet with a screen that currently beats even the best of them. The interestingly named “Mebius Pad” has a 2560×1600 display which rivals that of the 1920×1080 Microsoft Surface Pro 2.

The display is a 10.1″ IGZO panel and is licensed for use with Sharp and Samsung devices. Downside: the CPU is an Intel Atom CPU, said Engadget, and is known for being the default choice of chipset in low-powered netbooks.

It comes with Windows 8.1 with Office pre-loaded for nothing. The report says that if you want the Pro version of Office, you’ll need to cough up some extra dosh. And also, like the deliciously powerful Sony Xperia Tablet Z, the Mebius is water and dust resistant, or IPX5 and IPX7.

Sharps mega-display tablet is also going to be rocking the LTE airwaves, and that model will be available as an option, but in Japan only. There’s a rear camera, but the specs for that haven’t been released yet.

If you’re thinking, “hold on, Surface Pro 2 goes up to 3840×2160″ you’re thinking correctly. But that’s only what it outputs to while docked. Sharp’s Mebius can handle 2560×1600 without such fancy add-ons or extensions and in a 10.1” screen it’s going to make an enormous difference. Think of it like this: Excel spreadsheets and 1080p content will finally look fairly close to a laptop or monitor display thanks to the added pixels. Say goodbye to squinting. Now all we need to know is the price, CPU, internal memory and so on.

The tablet has been described as both “thin” and “light” which are the two of the three defaults every tablet maker mentions in their press releases. Usually it’s “thinner, lighter, faster.” What if we wanted “bigger, heavier and slower”?

Sharp’s Mebius tablet is expected to launch “early 2014”.

Image: Engadget