By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com
January 7, 2009
Hoping to steal some of Apple's thunder and suck up some of the oxygen in the room not taken by the Google Nexus One launch, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used his keynote address at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show to introduce what he called a beautiful little product.
The product is a tablet-style computer, a joint venture between the software giant and Hewlett-Packard. The device will fill the space that Apple's still not acknowledged iSlate is said to be aiming for.
So, what exactly is it?
We're talking about something that's almost as portable as a phone and that's as powerful as a PC running Windows 7, Ballmer said.
While Ballmer used his high-profile appearance Wednesday evening to tease the tech-savvy audience about the product, HP hasn't been saying much. The company says it will incorporate intuitive touch technology, but has been mum on pricing.
Tech blogger Doug Ionescu at PC World was quick to call the device a big disappointment. In his post about the new device, Ionescu said those expecting a product to rival Apple's alleged new offering aren't getting it.
The HP tablet is a basically a color e-reader running Amazon Kindle software, with few other details besides a sub-$500 price point and an estimated arrival on the market by mid-2010, Ionescu writes.
He further notes the release failed to move the market, except downward. Shares of both Microsoft and HP closed lower in Wednesday's trading.
The announcement might be viewed as a preemptive strike against Apple, which is said to be readying release of a tablet computer at the end of January. Though Apple has not officially confirmed the existence of such a device or revealed its plans, it has trademarked the word iSlate, which is said to be the name of the new device.
What is it?
What exactly is a tablet computer? Portable PC's got smaller with the advent of netbook computers. With the tablet, they get even smaller.
Tablet computers, which resemble writing slates, are small computing devices that are mostly made up of their screen. There is no dedicated keyboard, since users an on-screen keypad, or in some cases, a stylus. For text input, users rely on handwriting recognition using an active digitizer, touching the screen with a fingertip or stylus or by using an external keyboard which can usually be attached via a wireless or USB connection.
These tablet, of slate, PCs usually have small screens, ranging from seven to 10 inches. The prototypes appear similar to e-readers, and in fact some of these new devices may incorporate many e-reader features.
