TabletKiosk delays its UMPC
TabletKiosk delays its UMPC
Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications.
"Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
Forget desktops and notebooks; the new category PC vendors want you to get excited about is the Ultra-Mobile PC, or UMPC. Microsoft, Intel, and several hardware vendors teamed up to develop specifications for a tablet PC platform (originally code-named Project Origami), and Samsung is about to release its much-hyped Q1 tablet.
According to News.com, southern California company TabletKiosk had planned to have its UMPC device, dubbed the Eo v7110, on the market already, but a manufacturing problem has dealt the company a setback. An open letter on the TabletKiosk Web site reads:
"As the end of April rapidly approaches, we find ourselves in the position of having to balance our commitment to quality with the expectation of a timely product delivery. After the process of quality control was completed on the first Eo production units, it was determined that there was an issue in the tooling of the back panel that affected the operation of the system fan. Because of this problem, the back panel had to undergo a slight redesign and thus the initial shipment is going to be only a fraction of what we had anticipated."While other UMPC manufacturers are targeting gear-happy consumers, TabletKiosk has been selling non-UMPC tablet PCs to commercial and industrial users for years.
Besides manufacturing woes, the budding UMPC industry faces other hurdles, including initial reports of poor battery life, problems with demo presentations, and the fact that vendors have been trying to push tablet PCs since the late 1980s.
Mobile Guides
Phones
Foldable Phones
Headphones
Mobile Accessories
Smartwatches
Wireless Plans
Mobile coupons