Melissa J. Perenson, Robert Strohmeyer

Are Android tablets poised to fall in price, again? That’s what it sounds like based on comments by Nvidia vice president Rob Csonger. In a call with investors, Csonger discussed the existence of a reference design for a $199 Android tablet running the company’s Tegra 3 processor. What’s noteworthy here is that, in the five months since Nvidia took the stage at its CES 2012 press conference, the company has lowered the target price of its inexpensive tablet platform from $249 to $199.

That 20 percent price decrease reflects the ongoing price pressures in the non-Apple tablet market, where the Amazon Kindle Fire dominates among 7-inch models, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 dropped in price by 38 percent compared with last fall’s model. However, neither of those models are performance barn burners, and neither features a quad-core processor with the potential power of Nvidia’s Tegra 3 platform.

Huawei's MediaPad 10 tabletHuawei brought its MediaPad 10 tablet to CTIA 2012. The tablet was first introduced at Mobile World Congress in February, as was the Ascend line of smartphones.

Neither has changed much since then, and both remain in limbo in terms of U.S. availability, but we did catch a few new changes in the tablet's software and hardware.

AT&T is making an ambitious jump into home security and automation with AT&T Digital Life, a service that will run on its wireless infrastructure. The company announced the venture here at the CTIA trade show at an offsite event in the New Orleans' Garden District. Trials of the new offering begin this summer in Atlanta and Dallas.

Home automation is a departure from AT&T's core products and services, but the Digital Life service, says Ainsley M. Sadio, assistant vice president for AT&T Digital Life, is a complement to the company's existing service offerings.

CTIA 2012 in New Orleans starts May 8.CTIA 2012 kicks off next week in the Big Easy, and PCWorld will be at the show to bring you all the latest mobile news from New Orleans.

Unlike Mobile World Congress (MWC) or even the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), CTIA is more of a U.S.-focused gathering for the wireless industry. Here's what we know so far.

It appears that $400 or less marks the new sweet spot for 10-inch-class tablets. First Apple reduced its iPad 2 to that price, and now we have a pair of Android tablets, the Acer Iconia Tab A200 and the Asus Transformer Pad TF300, coming in at $350 and $380, respectively. If you have four C-bills and want a 10-inch tablet, which of these represents the best deal? The answer may surprise you.

Or maybe not. We’ve already established that, for some, an Apple iPad 2 may be enough tablet and represent the better buy over the newer third-generation iPad. But now we have two new Android models, each from large PC manufacturers, and each competing for the same market that Apple’s targeting with its iPad 2.

When Barnes & Noble first announced its latest e-reader, the Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight, the company indicated it would ship the e-reader in early May. Well, scratch that--the company began shipping the GlowLight e-reader this week to pre-orders. The e-reader is still expected to be for sale in stores starting in early May.

But don't assume you'll be able to walk right into your local Barnes & Noble book store to buy one. Barnes & Noble sent us an alert warning of "very strong" pre-order demand that was "larger-than-expected." That, the company says, will translate into limited quantities of the Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight when it arrives on store shelves in May.

Barnes & Noble has made the best e-reader currently available even better by integrating a light source into it. Priced at $139 (as of April 24, 2012), the Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight E Ink-based e-reader sets the standard for silky-smooth reading and shopping. And even better, you can enjoy reading it wherever you happen to be, whether you're lounging on the lawn in bright sunlight, or sitting under the covers with little to no light in the room.

Although monochromatic E Ink e-readers make sense in many circumstances, reading in the dark is not one of them. The bedside lamp, or the overhead light in an airplane, can often be overkill, and a disturbance to other people near you. With this e-reader, you’re paying a $40 premium for the honor of having a built-in light, but the versatility that the integrated reading light offers you is well worth the extra bucks.

On the surface, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 appears to be little more than a low-key refresh of its six-month-old predecessor, the in-betweener Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Admittedly, it is a fairly subtle refresh. But the Tab 2’s noticeably lower cost--at $250 (as of April 23, 2012), it represents a 38 percent drop in price from the 7.0 Plus--coupled with its numerous features gives it a clear advantage over the leading value-tablet competitors, the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes and Noble Nook Tablet.

With that sizable drop, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2 marks the first time a premium Android tablet maker like Samsung has gone full-bore after the value market. The Galaxy Tab 2 is competitively priced against the $200 Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, 7-inch tablets that each use their own customized versions of Android 2.3. Those Android variants can provide better integration for some tasks, such as reading books and magazines, or acquiring media, but that convenience comes at the cost of wider compatibility with the Android app universe: Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble require you to purchase apps only via their respective storefronts.

The 10.1-inch Asus Transformer Pad TF300 aims to reshape the tablet market by delivering top-tier performance at a value price. The device largely succeeds in this mission, delivering performance that's on a par with its pricier Transformer Prime sibling. However, the Transformer Pad had to make some compromises in its components and display to achieve its goal. And more worrying than those compromises--which include a slightly heavier weight and different materials than what's found on the premium Prime--were the frequent glitches I seemed to encounter, with no rhyme or reason, while using this Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) tablet.

Priced at $379 for 16GB of storage, and $399 for 32GB of storage (prices as of 4/22/2012), the Transformer Pad is the new value tablet in Asus's lineup. The Transformer Prime, which was released last December and was the first tablet with Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor, remains at the top of the pyramid, for now; that model starts at $100 more than the Pad for the 32GB version. (Asus has already announced high-definition, 1920-by-1280-resolution 10.1-inch models, coming later this spring/summer season.)

In a sea of me-too tablet slabs, the Toshiba Excite 10 LE—running Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)—distinguishes itself on two key metrics. First, at 1.18 pounds, it's the lightest 10-inch-size tablet we've seen to date. Second, it's the slimmest, measuring just 0.3 inch thick. Sadly, Toshiba made a few questionable design choices in its construction and display that detract from using it, and make it a poor choice.

Another reason to stay clear: You'll be paying a little extra for the 16GB version: $530, versus $499 for the 16GB Apple iPad. (For 32GB, you'll pay $600—the same price as Apple's iPad, but $100 more than Asus charges for its same-capacity—and better-performing—Transformer Prime.)

Microsoft has finally taken the wraps off of its naming scheme for Windows 8. And while Microsoft deserves kudos for keeping things simple and giving us just two editions for x86-based systems--Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro--the company takes a step backward with its plan for Windows 8 running on ARM-based processors.

That version of Windows, now referred to by the arcane "Windows RT," clearly represents an attempt to distinguish between ARM-based Windows 8 and standard x86-based Windows—both of which will appear in tablets and laptop-style clamshell PCs. At first glance, however, the new name stumbles over itself, even before the fledgling Windows on ARM can take flight.