Here’s a couple of nice articles explaining the state of the tablet computing offerings from various vendors in light of the products announced at the Consumer Electronics Show and the announcement of the Apple iPad. It makes for some light reading and you may even discover a thing or two you didn’t know about the new tablets.
Click here for Gizmodo’s comprehensive coverage and here for another article that discusses the HP Slate vs the Apple iPad in more detail.
I use the word “sneak” because while they are publicising this new device, they are only making it available, at least initially, in Europe and Latin America. It will be sold under the Compaq label, and be called the Airlife 100. It runs Android, has a 10 inch screen, 16GB of solid state disk space, WiFi, webcam, SD card slot, and most interestingly, have built-in/embedded wireless wide area network, ie. built-in 3G capabilities. In addition, it will have built-in GPS as well as boast a 12 hour operating time on batteries.
Unsurprisingly therefore, the device is supposed to be offered firstly in conjunction with the Telefonica group of Spain, where it will likely be available for a subsidised price in exchange for the customer committing the rest of their natural lives to the carrier in the shape of a long term contract. And the device is likely to run a non-Windows supporting processor to keep costs down – after all, Android does not need the processing power of an Intel Atom processor, for example!
Will it make its way here? I’m not sure that the small local market can sustain an Android netbook. After all, we already have rather capable netbooks running full blown Windows, and transitioning to Android will not be as straightforward as some people think on a large device. Nevertheless, since the device supports the European 3G standards, it will work here without modifications, so I guess we can only wait and see.
Click here and here for more.
HP becomes the latest manufacturer in Malaysia to offer an upgraded netbook with the new Pine Trail, aka N450 processor. The model number is the Mini 210 compared to the earlier Mini 110 which used the Atom N280 processor. Nothing much apart from the processor and graphics chipset has changed in the 210 compared to the 110 – the hard drive capacity is 250GB, and there is 1GB of RAM on board. Screen size is 10.2″, and is a more energy efficient LED screen, pumping out 1024 x 600 pixels resolution. As is normally the case with the newer netbooks, this one comes with Microsoft Windows 7 Starter edition pre-installed.
Retail price for the Mini 210 is RM 1,349. It’s available at your favourite HP retailers/resellers now. As is usually the case with HP Malaysia’s website, I can’t find official details of this netbook at all. No luck on the HP Singapore website either. One wonders whether HP is indeed serious in pushing its netbooks at all in these two countries, and why have a web presence at all when your products are never updated?
You can try this webpage for the specifications though.
No one in their right minds was going to leave Apple to have the tablet/slate party all to themselves, so many have decided to just jump in to this segment; whether there are customers out there or not in sufficient numbers to justify investing in the market, no one really knows. Following in Lenovo’s footsteps which announced the U1 Hybrid, HP has announced their Slate. Yep – just the slate. Nothing earth shattering about the name. Boy, HP must be short in marketing budget this year to come up with such an unimaginative name!
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, revealed it during his CES (Consumer Electronics Show) keynote speech. Very little details are available apart from what you see in the video below. It is presumably a 10″ capacitive touchscreen device and runs Windows 7, but beyond this, no one knows what’s inside. And HP is not telling yet. Are you overwhelmed that people are beginning to pay attention to the slate form factor, or underwhelmed by the whole thing?
DiGi is having a promotion now where new subscribers to its DiGi Broadband service (not Turbo 3G, as far as I can tell) stand a chance to win an HP Mini 110 that comes pre-installed with Windows 7. No word on whether this is the 3G equipped version that was also available as part of a long term contract package some time ago (and perhaps is still available today, I’m just too darned lazy to check!). Current subscribers can also participate, but since DiGi does not value current subscribers just like any other typical Malaysian company, all you can stand to win is a miserable copy of Windows 7 Ultimate with a street retail price of around RM 800.
Click here for details on how to participate and contest terms and conditions. So while DiGi is nice enough to give away prizes, it’s only for new subscribers. Looks like DiGi doesn’t want to be *that* different from other Malaysian companies after all! :P
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