slate

Dell Duo: Are Windows tablets on the rise?

There's the iPad, and there are Android tablets, but the most intriguing dark horse of them all might still be Windows 7. Despite many products we've seen that have been awkward grafts of Windows 7 touch technology, the imminent arrival of the Dell Inspiron Duo re-confirms that Windows 7 convertible tablets aren't dead yet.

However, are they shaping up to be better than what we've previously seen?

We reviewed the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t earlier this year, a well-designed but flawed convertible Atom / Windows 7 convertible tablet that felt bulky and slow. Recent designs such as the … Read more

Hewlett-Packard runs out of Slates

Consumers still looking to buy one of Hewlett-Packard's new Slate 500 devices will have to wait awhile.

Only three weeks since its debut, HP's new tablet is on back order, according to a notice on the unit's order page. The notice says the tablet is scheduled to ship in another six weeks, and a person in HP's sales department confirmed that it would be shipping on December 27. This means that people who place new orders for a Slate 500 won't be able to get one in time for the holidays.

HP has attributed the … Read more

New JooJoo pitch: 'We're still alive'

The December 2009 launch of the Fusion Garage JooJoo tablet computer did not go well. The tablet launched before the iPad but received none of Apple's success. There was little love from media or the public, and for good reason. The iPad undercut it on price and outperformed it in slickness and utility. The product itself was not reliable. And since there was no application marketplace, there were no developers beating the JooJoo drumbeat.

Then there was the legal battle with former development partner TechCrunch, which filed suit against Fusion Garage claiming fraud, intellectual property theft, and other crimes. The legal battle is ongoing.

Fusion Garage isn't out of the game yet. CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan, in fact, has since raised additional funding: $3 million, bringing the total investment in the company to $10 million. Here's the plan. Unfortunately, it's not enough.

First, Fusion Garage would like to remind the world that its first-generation tablet is still for sale. This is the $499, Atom-powered, 12.1-inch wide-screen tablet that the company first showed off in December. Don't buy it. The hardware is out of date. And even with its improved firmware and bespoke OS, it's sluggish and frustrating to use, and it can't play Flash HD video smoothly in full-screen view. Why have a gigantic display if not to play video? Battery life is horrendous. My sample wound down in just a few hours--and that was in standby mode.

Rathakrishnan admits that this platform "has shortcomings." While I appreciate finally getting a JooJoo that works (our review unit from early in the year is dead as a mud brick), it was a tactical mistake to leave this dated device with me, as it only serves to remind that JooJoo's only existing product is not competitive. It would be a mistake for anyone to buy one. Furthermore, Fusion Garage is abandoning the platform.

The next JooJoo tablets--the plan is to make more than one model, in different sizes--will be based on Android. But they won't be Android tablets the way the Samsung Galaxy is or Archos products are. Instead, Rathakrishnan says, "Think of it as BSD on the Mac." The JooJoo's core OS will be a fork of Android, with a unique feature set and user experience. Android apps will be supported, but I gather they'll appear to be somewhat alien to anyone using the JooJoo's own UI.

The unique feature of the JooJoo platform will be device-to-device state synchronization.… Read more

HP Slate out and about

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

The HP Slate is available now and we have an in-depth look at it

Google TV seems to be blocked by ABC, NBC, and our parent company CBS

The Barnes and Noble Nook will go on sale at Wal-Mart this weekend

FaceTime for Mac may jeopardize your passwords

Microsoft announces Games for Windows, a PC gaming store

Hands-on with the HP Slate 500

Even before Apple's iPad was officially announced, HP was showing off a prototype tablet on stage at CES 2010. Since then, the company and its slate have been in and out of public view, offering up tantalizing sneak peek videos, followed by rumors of delays and OS changes, further complicated by the company's merger with Palm.

At long last, an actual HP tablet is being officially released--but it may not be exactly what you'd expect. The HP Slate 500 Tablet PC is a 9-inch Windows 7 slate, aimed at business and industrial users, rather than casual consumers. In fact, it seems to be exactly the same product we obtained a series of leaked photos of several weeks ago, right down to the leather case and docking stand.

We got a chance to sit down with the HP Slate 500 recently, and found it to be a lightweight, sturdy device, with a slick industrial design and several hardware advantages over the iPad, especially when it comes to ports and connections. … Read more

Meet the HP Slate 500

Thanks to an e-mail CNET received, we have images and detailed specs for the long-awaited Windows 7 slate that Hewlett-Packard originally promised at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. We hear that it will be formally introduced on Monday.

There have been some leaks here and there, but now we know, based on this HP document, that it's officially called the HP Slate 500 Tablet PC. As HP had said before, it comes with Windows 7 and is aimed at corporate customers. We've listed all the specs below, but some of the ones that popped out at us: … Read more

Windows tablets delayed until 2011? Remember, they're already here

[Note: Updated below with a new gallery of currently available Windows tablets and slates.]

There's much online chatter at the moment about a financial analyst's prediction that there won't be any tablet computers that run Microsoft Windows until mid-2011. According to Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert, says businessinsider.com, it's simply an impossible task right now:

Windows 7 is currently not supported on Qualcomm's popular SnapDragon processor, and Intel's low power Oak Trail processor (part of the Atom family) for tablets is not due out until March 2011. Microsoft could introduce Windows-based tablets … Read more

Leaked: Is this the HP Slate 500?

We've gotten our hands on a handful of leaked photos of what is purportedly the upcoming HP Slate 500 tablet. Following on the hands-on video found on YouTube last week, this is the second recent appearance of a Windows version of this much-delayed tablet.

These pics, courtesy of a tip provided to our pals at Buzz Out Loud, show a tablet running Windows 7, along with a docking stand (with USB and HDMI ports), and a leather-like case with a hole cut in it for the rear-facing camera.

If anything, these recent leaks of a Win 7 version of … Read more

Is this the HP Windows 7 Slate?

First it was to be one of HP's biggest product launches of 2010. Then the project was killed. Then it wasn't. So might the HP Slate actually live?

A new video that appeared on YouTube today purports to be a review of a close-to-final prototype of the touch-screen tablet. It shows a device that looks similar to an iPad, but a bit thicker, and running Windows 7. Also included: a 3-megapixel camera, an SD card slot, a microphone, physical button to launch the on-screen keyboard, home key, lock button, and "control-alt-delete" button. It's also described … Read more