Qualcomm’s quad-core dev tablet is $1299

After gaining a lot of traction in the mobile space, Qualcomm is taking a big leap forward.

The company has created its own branded tablet, with an aim targeted directly at the iPad, but geared more toward the developer community. With its 10.1-inch display and a quad-core processor, the Qualcomm tablet is certainly not vying for the audience that the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire are trying to attract.

It is the first tablet based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. It runs on the APQ8064 chip with asynchronous Quad CPU cores, each running at 1.5 GHz.

There’s an Adreno 320 GPU, and the display has a WXGA multitouch panel.

It also runs on version 4.0 of Android, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, so even at the steep price point users don’t get to jump onto the latest version of Android.

But given how nascent Jelly Bean is at this stage, it would stand to reason that an update for Qualcomm’s device is only a matter of time.

In addition to the tablet itself, consumers receive a docking station in the box, along with the requisite cables and adapters.

Again, this device is geared specifically toward developers in the hopes of getting more people on board when it comes to creating tablet-optimized Android apps, of which there is a notable shortage right now.

If successful, it will mount pressure against the iPad which has until now enjoyed significant power in the 10-inch tablet market.