In the CES Microsoft Opening Keynote last night, Steve Ballmer introduced the “HP Slate”, a light tablet computer with multi-touch capability. He showed it off running Windows 7, and played around with the Kindle PC Application. According to Ballmer, the Slate comes with several modes of access: PC Mode, Movie Mode, eBook Mode, “They’re more powerful than a phone and almost as powerful as a PC. Perfect for reading, surfing the web and taking entertainment on the go”. To be honest, this product looks absolutely beautiful; the screen is bright, colors are brilliant (althought I doubt it is OLED), and the form factor size is perfect (Can’t tell much from the keynote, but it looks like it is around 7 inches diagonally). You can check out the physical product yourself, in this HP promo video:
HP said they will be releasing the technical specifications and price of the product shortly after the event. However, I would think, to make it competitive in the netbook popularized marketplace, it would have to be atleast under 500-600 dollars.
Although this wasn’t the “Microsoft Courier” we hoped for, it has nevertheless put the pressure on Apple to deliver on its much anticipated Apple Slate.
