Wandering the show floor at CeBIT in Germany, jkkmobile stumbled across 2 nice looking tablet computers from DPT. Both feature 7 inch displays, but one model has a 1024 x 600 pixel display and runs Windows 7 while the other is a Windows XP tablet with a lower resolution 800 x 480 pixel display.
The Windows 7 version has a multitouch display, 8GB to 16GB of solid state storage, and an Intel Atom Z5xx series processor. It has 1GB of RAM, 802.11b/g/ WiFi, and an HDMI output as well as a SIM card slot and an optional 3G module.
We’ve seen a lot of Windows XP and Windows 7 tablets over the past few months, but I’m still not convinced there’s a very large market for these slate PCs. The technology to produce them has been around for years, and to be honest, companies have been selling them for quite a while. But while they’ve definitely been popular in certain niche markets and among a small group of enthusiasts, they’ve never really taken off with the general public. I have the feeling that if the Apple iPad takes off, it will be tablets running Google Android or Windows CE that give it a run for its money, not tablets running a desktop operating system designed for use with a keyboard and mouse.
You an check out jkkmobile’s hands-on video after the break.
This is the year of the tablet. (Well, the second one…) In addition to the iPad, HP Slate, and numerous Android tablets in the works, laptop manufacturers are still interested in taking advantage of Windows 7’s built-in touch capabilities for convertible systems. It seems like every month a new tablet comes out — in fact, we just reviewed two of Lenovo’s latest offerings: the Lenovo S10-3t and the ThinkPad X201 Tablet. But what can you do with a tablet besides rotating and zooming in on photographs?
Windows 7 offers full multitouch support and Internet Explorer 8 is optimized for touch, which means smooth scrolling through webpages, but there are also numerous apps available that provide a great touch interface — and most of them are either inexpensive or free. Check out our current favorite touch apps below and let us know your favorites in the comments.
Kindle for PC
If you’re turned off by the idea of a single function device like the Kindle or if just want to get a feel for electronic reading without the $259 commitment, Kindle for PC is a good place to start. Using Kindle for PC on a tablet is very similar to using an actual Kindle and it works in both landscape and portrait mode. Tap anywhere in the grey columns on either side of the text to flip between pages. Best of all, Kindle for PC is free. While the vast majority of books available through Amazon are not free, there are a lot of free editions of classics, such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Free; www.amazon.com
Seesmic Look
Excellent Twitter app creator Seesmic has a new take on the micro-blogging service with its Seesmic Look app. Like any good Twitter app, it shows trending topics, your direct messages, your newsfeed (called “social”), favorites, interests, and channels. Interests culls tweets from Twitterers in broad categories such as news, sports, entertainment, and music. Channels are sponsored and features Twitterers tweeting from companies such as Kodak, RedBull, the Huffington Post, and TIME. The coolest feature of Seesmic Look is the option to watch tweets appear in bubbles that mimic the app’s background. The newest tweets show up at full opacity while older ones slowly fade in from the background. The effect is strangely hypnotizing, but at the same time gives text-heavy Twitter a very appealing visual element.
Free; seesmic.com
Hulu Desktop
Hulu’s beta desktop app is a great way to access all your favorite shows while giving your browser the night off. We love that it automatically plays everything at full screen, but the menu is still easy to navigate with large, finger-friendly buttons. Although it doesn’t currently support multitouch, the app is still a cinch to navigate. Want to pause your show? Simply tap the screen to both pause and access in video navigation options. One more tap starts the show again.
Free; www.hulu.com
The New York Times Reader 2.0
While the Times Reader 2.0 is an Adobe Air app that might require an extra download, it’s execution is very slick. All of the newspaper’s sections are cleanly laid out on the left side and the app opens to the front page. Overall, the app looks great, but we wish more of the sections were available to non-newspaper subscribers. Scrolling through stories within the app isn’t as smooth as it could be, because you have to either use the up/down arrows in the lower right-hand corner or the scroll bar,В but it’s still decent.
Free; timesreader.nytimes.com
The Apple iPad is expected to begin shipping in the next month or two, and while it remains to be seen whether it will truly revolutionize the slate PC space, there’s one thing the iPad has already done: spark a ton of competition in the tablet space. For much of 2010, the iPad was nothing but a rumor, but PC makers were bending over backward trying to create products that would compete with the as-yet-unannounced tablet.
Now that we know the iPad is basically an oversized iPod Touch with a faster processor and larger display, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that one company has decided the best way to compete is to launch a tablet that looks like… an oversized iPod Touch.
Shenzhen, China-based manufacturer TESO’s new tablet looks pretty much exactly like an iPod Touch or iPhone — if those devices had 10 inch displays and ran Windows 7 instead of the iPhone OS.
On the inside, the tablet is pretty much a standard netbook with a few extra features thrown in for good measure. It has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, and hard drive instead of the iPad’s solid state storage. The tablet also has a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen display, a 3G modem, and GPS. It has a 3000mAh battery
The tablet weighs 2.6 pounds and measures 11.4″ x 5.9″ x 0.8″. Overall it’s rather large and heavy for a tablet. And you know, it runs Windows 7 and won’t be able to handle iPhone apps.
French retailer fnac has posted a product page for a new Asus netbook model called the Eee PC 1005PE-H. Basically, the laptop is identical to the Asus Eee PC 1005PE in most respects. It has the same design, keyboard, and processor. But the Eee PC 1005PE-H comes with more RAM and storage space than its cheaper sibling, and ships with Windows 7 Home Premium instead of Windows 7 Starter Edition.
There’s no word on whether this model will be available in the US anytime soon. But I’d be surprised if it’s only available in France. Typically netbooks that pop up in that country are made available throughout much of Europe.
Fnac is charging 349 Euros for the Eee PC 1005PE-H, whichi s the equivalent of $476 US, although European prices tend to be higher than prices in the US.
Rivalries are, for better or worse, one of the defining elements of human existence.В Those that participate in these long-running feuds typically push one another to produce their best work (think Yanks/Sox, Lakers/Celtics).
The same principles hold true in the mobile technology space. Apple and Microsoft have tussled back and forth with snarky ad campaigns and CEO comments that have touted the value of their respective operating systems, butВ in reality, Mac OS X and Windows have more similarities than ever before.
As such, we’ve decided to pit the Snow Leopard and Windows 7 against one another in a series of hands-on, thorough testing to see which OS is the best in pure computing, entertainment, and special features. To find out which one came out on top, read our Mac OS X Snow Leopard vs.В Windows 7 face-off.
The vast majority of 9 and 10 inch netbooks with Intel Atom chips and GMA 950 graphics have the same native screen resolution: 1024 x 600 pixels. While that’s generally good enough to view most web pages, some web content doesn’t really fit on a display that small. And some programs won’t even run if you don’t have a 1024 x 768 pixel or higher resolution display.
Asus offers software on its Eee PC netbooks that lets you virtually turn the screen into a 1024 x 768 pixel display in one of two ways. You can choose one mode that will let you slide up and down to see the bottom or top of the screen. Or you can emulate a 1024 x 768 pixel screen by those extra 168 lines into a space that wasn’t really built for them. The result is that text tends to look a little funky, but at least you’ll be able to run programs that require a higher resolution display.
Now it looks like there’s a way to increase the virtual display resolution without using the Asus software. Netbook News reports that there’s a new Windows 7 driver for netbooks with GMA 950 graphics that lets you adjust the screen resolution to 1182 x 864 pixels.
Bear in mind, this doesn’t actually increase the number of pixels that your netbook can natively display. And that means that increasing the resolution will effectively make text and images on your netbook look kind of crappy. But if you absolutely need to be able to squeeze more content onto your screen, it could come in handy.
You can check out a video demo from Netbook News after the break.
You can download the GMA 950 Windows 7 driver version 8.15.10.1912 here.
There appears to be a tweaked version of Windows 7 floating around called Windows 7 Netbook Edition. No, this isn’t the Windows 7 Starter Edition that’s been shipping on most netbooks introduced in the last month or two. Rather, it’s a customized version of Windows 7 Ultimate that has had a number of drivers, language packs, and other features ripped out of it. The end result is that Windows 7 Netbook Edition is said to run well on pretty much any netbook, including the original Asus Eee PC 701 with only 4GB of disk space.
Of course, there’s one major problem: this ain’t an official Microsoft build. As far as I can tell, it’s actually based on a pre-release version of Windows 7. I haven’t downloaded the installer to test it out, but there’s a decent chance that the OS will expire at some point if you don’t have a valid product key, or possibly even if you do.
The safest way to install Windows 7 on a netbook is still to purchase a copy and either install it using a USB DVD drive or by using a USB flash drive. You’ll probably have a hard time shoehorning Windows 7 Ultimate onto an Eee PC 701 that way, but it should play well with most netbooks with 16GB or more of storage space.
Samsung isn’t just rolling out brand new netbooks at CES. The company has also given some of its existing products a modest update by replacing Windows XP with Windows 7 Starter Edition. The new version of the Samsung N130 is called the N135, and the only real change is that it now runs Windows 7. It still has the same Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive as the earlier version.
The Samsung N140 doesn’t even get a name change. But it is now available with Windows 7 Starter Edition.
I got a chance to check out both models on the show floor at CES recently. You can find more pictures after the break.
ViewSonic, like virtually every netbook maker on the face of the earth, is introducing a new Windows 7 version of its 10 inch mini-laptop. The VNB102 with Windows 7 Starter Edition will hit the streets on December 18th for about $399.
Aside from the new operating system, there’s little to set the VNB102 apart from earlier netbooks from ViewSonic, or pretty much any other PC vendor, for that matter. The computer has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.
The screen is a 10 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display. It sports Ethernet, 802.11b/g/ WiFi, and a VGA output. And the netbook has a 6 cell battery that ViewSonic says is good for up to 6 hours.
MSI has released its first netbook with Windows 7, and it’s the Wind U123. In other words, it’s the exact same netbook that MSI has been pushing for the last few months, except it now comes with Windows 7 Starter Edition instead of Windows XP.
Most PC vendors gave their netbooks a slight spec bump with Windows 7 because Microsoft allows companies to bundle low cost copies of Windows 7 Starter Edition with netbooks that have hard drives up to 250GB. The Windows XP restriction was set at 160GB. But it looks like MSI is basically selling the same computer with a new operating system, because the Windows 7 model ships with a 160GB hard drive, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display.
On the other hand, it’s available with a 9 cell, 7800mAh battery, which should help make up for any loss of battery life you would otherwise experience with the move from Windows XP to 7.
You can pick up the MSI Wind U123 with Windows 7 Starter Edition for $379.99 from Neweggfor $380 from Newegg. Or you could just pick up the Windows XP version with a 6 cell battery for as low as $299.99.
I suspect MSI will also probably have a new model to introduce soon. After all, CES is less than a month away.
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Rivalries are, for better or worse, one of the defining elements of human existence.В Those that participate in these long-running feuds typically push one another to produce their best work (think Yanks/Sox, Lakers/Celtics).
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