Stantum's touch screen Dell tablet prototype

At CES 2010, Dell got a lot of attention from its concept model 5-inch slate. While only briefly shown at Dell's CES press conference, we got a chance to play around with a demo unit behind the scenes, and came away feeling like it was a slightly jazzed-up smartphone, rather than a true tablet PC.

Almost more interesting is this prototype, not built by Dell, but constructed out of a Dell Netbook body.

While Dell's concept device may never be released, we've spent the past two days taping, swiping, and flipping on a new Dell tablet PC, with a 10-inch multitouch display and powered by an Intel Atom processor.

The device is actually a prototype tablet built by French multitouch technology company Stantum. The company started with a stock Dell Mini 10 Netbook, deconstructed it, removing the screen and keyboard, and rebuilt it with a resistive touch screen -- all to demo its touch display know-how.