The Toshiba R400 we saw at CES last week isn’t even out yet, but it got a little battered and bruised in this high-level sharing of thoughts at Core Duo News. Some of the high low-lights:
- "The first thought that comes to mind is “slow,slow, slow”, what with 4200 rpm IDE hard drive and 1.2 ULV processor"
- "E-mail synchronization and calendar items shown on integrated small screen? Thats just Microsoft SideShow and quite a few new portables already have it."
- "If I decide to get a new tablet I think I’ll opt for a little older, but cheaper and faster alternatives…"
I think Core Duo News has a valid point if you simply look at the paper specs for your paper money. We are talking about a device that’s expected to cost between $2500 and $3500, depending on configuration. I suspect that we’ll see the prices quickly drop however; the market simply won’t sustain that price point for the feature set when compared to alternatives. And while we’d all like the fastest and highest performing components in a computing device, we have to realize (*start broken record*) that this is a mobile device so we will almost always sacrifice price, power and performance for mobility and battery life. (*end broken record*)
The R400 is an evolutionary step in Tablet PC design, especially with the wireless USB dock that will follow it; while the price appears high, I can’t wait to see how it performs in the real world.
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