Welcome back to the Tablet Thursday digest!
HP has surprised everyone by updating a tablet — just not the one anyone is interested in. HP is replacing their business-oriented Slate 500 with the Slate 2. Sporting the same Intel Atom chip found in most netbooks, the Slate 2 also rocks a 32 GB Solid State Disk hard drive in an 8.9″ form factor. The price tag on this baby is $699 showing that they’ve learned little from the last time they priced a tablet. Part of that cost is probably from having to pay a license fee for the OS onboard – Windows 7.
It should have the decency to look ashamed.
This is sort of baffling. I get that webOS is in limbo, and redeploying it would likely cost a small fortune, but what I don’t get is why in the world you’d put the non-touch friendly Windows 7 OS on any device when the touch-centric Windows 8 is around the corner. Indeed, this could be an almost perfect Windows 8 device.
Speaking of Microsoft, CNET had an amazing pair of articles this week about why Microsoft killed their Courier Tablet device. It looks like it suffered the same issue as the KIN mobile device — it was seen as competition by another department of Microsoft. In the KIN’s case, it was more of a mercy killing. However, the Courier had some darn unique things going on, and it would have been awesome to see it in some form.
It just exudes cool
Meanwhile, Apple has lost a lawsuit against upstart Spanish tablet maker NT-K. NT-K is now turning around and suing Apple for damages. This may not have any impact on Apple’s ongoing legal battles with Samsung in multiple countries, but you can never be too sure these days.
Undeterred by Apple’s insane market share and Samsung’s greater mindshare, Motorola has graced us with not one, but two new XOOM tablets. It’s hard to get too worked up, as they’re only announced for the UK just now, but it’s nice to see them moving forward. The smaller Xoom Media edition is especially interesting. It’s good to see companies offering multiple options.
Somewhere, a lawyer for Apple has perked up
With the holiday season fast approaching, as well as CES just around the corner, we’re apt to see a bunch more cool tablets in the next month or so.
I for one can’t wait.
[…] footprint of installed users and a grip on the tech media’s gonads. Their release of the Slate 2 last week shows that they have the necessary hardware agreements in place to get things moving. Heck, throw […]