Comments on: New Intel Tablet Chips, Nvidia Slates Expected at Computex

By: netwiz

netwiz — Fri, 28 May 2010 01:32:25 +0000

A Zune slate would be awesome, and you just reminded me that consumers still have the yearly refresh of the Zune to look forward to. Of course, as you say developers are key, and I don’t see too many devs on board the Zune HD platform.

By: Luscious

Luscious — Thu, 27 May 2010 22:58:04 +0000

“pressure from Intel and Microsoft”

I’d call that a far cry – HP canceled it’s slate in a heartbeat. Manufacturers may make it “seem” that they are scrambling to compete with Apple right now, but in the long run I’m thinking all the hype will end up as wasted R&D on products that either won’t sell well at all, or end up obsolete very quickly.

Slates may be hot today, but it’s a fad that will die down once people get over it and realize that regular PC’s still serve a purpose, especially for serious work.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:54:25 +0000

That may be a working strategy long-term, but I think it would be a very bad business move for MS to push a new, untested mobile operating system as their answer to the iPad unless they’ve specifically designed it for tablet usability from the get-go. The iPad benefits not only from developer buy-in, but from consumer buy-in and familiarity with the UI; you won’t get that out of the gate with a WP7 tablet. (You won’t get it with a WP7 phone, either, unless you’re only selling to Zune owners, but my gut feeling is that the market has higher expectations for tablet usability.)

By: GoodThings2Life

GoodThings2Life — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:46:17 +0000

My new dream is for fall is a “Zune Slate”… something based on Windows Phone 7 OS in a tablet form factor. Providing they can get developers on board, that is.