News is coming in from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) – Steve Ballmer’s keynote touched upon not only Windows 7, but also the recently announced HP multi-touch Slate tablet. The first official pictures of the prototype have been released:
Courtesy electricpig.co.uk
One bit of the speculation surrounding the Slate tablet was that it might run Microsoft’s Courier, a concept OS that is supposed to look and act like a book. Instead, the Slate will be running Windows 7, which as we know has quite a few new multi-touch features.
Another piece of data that came to light was that the Slate would include the PC version of Amazon’s Kindle software, meaning that you can download and view books from Amazon.com just as you would on a regular Kindle. (This begs the question: why buy a Kindle if you can get a much more capable device that can read E-books and also run all available Windows software? But I digress.)
Little more information was given by Ballmer – no hardware specs or battery life information, though I expect HP will opt for either an Atom processor or an Intel Ultra Low Voltage processor, the only chips that really make sense given the size and purpose of the tablet.
No pricing information was given, though Ballmer stated that it would cost about as much as a high-end smart phone – speculation puts it in the $500-700 range.
Last on the list of information we don’t yet have, the release date for the tablet has not yet been announced, but since HP obviously announced this tablet to steal some thunder from Apple’s rumored tablet announcement later this month it’ll be interesting to see how the company responds to Apple’s release date.
