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Asus, Acer, Toshiba to unveil Windows 8, RT tablets

Windows tablets from Asus and Toshiba at Computex should tell us more about the progress of Windows RT.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
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A Texas Instruments-based Windows RT tablet. To date, all Windows tablets running on ARM chips have been behind glass.
A Texas Instruments-based Windows RT tablet. To date, all Windows tablets running on ARM chips have been behind glass. Brooke Crothers

Asus, Acer, and Toshiba will roll out a mix of tablets based on both Windows 8 and Windows RT at the hardware-centric Computex trade show next week, according to Bloomberg.

Windows 8 will run on chips from Intel, while Windows RT is powered by ARM chips from Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments.

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One Asus tablet uses an Nvidia chip, said Bloomberg. CNET reported earlier in the month that Asus and Lenovo are expected to bring out Windows RT tablets built around Nvidia Tegra 3 chips.

A Windows RT-based Toshiba tablet is using Texas Instruments' silicon, according to Bloomberg.

This jibes with what sources have told CNET. Only a handful of Windows RT devices will be released initially from vendors such as Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo, and possibly Hewlett-Packard, as Microsoft wades slowly into new Windows waters. Windows RT is the first mainstream desktop-class Microsoft OS to run on ARM processors.

One of the burning questions is whether conference goers will actually be able to use the devices. To date, Windows RT tablets displayed at trade shows and conferences have been inaccessible -- always encased in glass.

Acer, meanwhile, will show a Windows 8 device running on top of an Intel chip, according to Bloomberg. And Asus will show off a second device based on an Intel chip.

Separately, below is an Asus teaser that appears to be showing a device that runs both Windows and Android.