Get, Slate, Go

This is the sort of second coming that ageing film stars and out-of-work models would trade an arm-and-a-leg for. The tablet was an all-but-dead product category, one that never really got off the ground sales-wise despite the big push from Microsoft and Bill Gates all the way back in 2002. And then, this little device from a little company in Cupertino came along earlier this year. I reckon the last time a tablet caused such a wave of mass adulation and expectant frenzy was way back when Moses descended from Mount Sinai!

But I digress. With the iPad, Apple’s wiped the slate clean, quite literally, opening up the flood gates for a slew of contenders that promise to revitalise an almost obsolete form factor at the very least and, if you believe some of the fanboys, completely change the way we interact with our computers and consume information. Here’s what’s on the cards in 2010, a slate of the union, so to speak.

Note: A quick word on nomenclature may be handy, what with the interchangeability of the words “tablet” and “slate”. Everything you will read about here is a tablet, but then again, so are all those stylus-toting laptops that have been around for the past eight-odd years. Let’s keep it fresh, shall we? And call them slates, if for no other reason than to keep the spectre of those forgettable tablets at bay?


Apple iPad

About 500,000 units sold, and with demand showing no signs of letting up, the iPad is yet another product infused with Apple’s secret sauce of success. With the iPad, Apple avoided a desktop-OS-and-hardware approach that plagued previous slates, thereby bucking conventional wisdom about what a slate’s capabilities should be. No more styluses or handwriting recognition, you interact with the slate in the most natural manner (touch) and use the most comfortable input method (keyboards).

What’s Hot: The gorgeous 9.7-in screen and the nippy little A4 processor, Apple’s apps, especially the iPad HD apps, and the 10+ hours of battery life.

What’s Not: Pretty much the raison d’être for everyone else on this page, the iPad’s flaws are upfront and obvious — no support for Adobe Flash, no camera/ USB/ memory card slots and access only to apps within Apple’s walled garden.


HP Slate

Squint a little, and you could easily confuse the HP Slate with the iPad. With a similar sleek profile and large 8.9-in capacitive display, it almost is. Except this one is from the dark side — it runs on the touch-enabled Windows 7 platform. Netbook specs in a slate form factor aside, this baby supports Flash and full-blown multi-tasking à la Windows, something the similarly priced iPad doesn’t. Throw in two built-in cameras (front and back), video-recording, a USB port and SD card reader at an expected pricing of between $550 and $600 (approx. Rs 25,000-Rs 27,000) and HP looks like it has all the iPad’s bases covered, and then some!

What’s Hot: HP would like us to believe it’s Flash, but the truth is the Slate really is one of the best specced devices on display today. Plus, the front facing camera and the memory card slots have the iPad squarely in their crosshairs!

What’s Not: Even though HP will put their famed TouchSmart skin on top of Windows 7, it’s still Windows 7. Windows has had a terrible run with tablets thus far, so can HP do enough? Plus the five-hour battery life pales beside the iPad.


Notion Ink Adam

Here’s one from the home team. Notion Ink, a small Indian start-up, is talking big with the Adam. Their Android-based slate boasts a sleek design, but way more impressive is what’s inside. It’s powered by the 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 chip, which acts as both a CPU and graphics card, letting you playback 1080p resolution videos on its 10-in, 1024x600 display. The real genius is the Pixel Qi screen, which can switch from a backlit LCD mode for web browsing to a low-power electrophoretic reflective mode — a lot like the Amazon Kindle’s e-Ink display — that’s not only easier on the eyes for book reading but also boosts battery life up to a mind-numbing 160 hours! Oh, and the delicious play of words hidden in there somewhere — can Adam bite the Apple?

What’s Hot: The display and the 16-hour battery life. And Flash and multi-tasking support.

What’s Not: Can Notion Ink deliver? And at a price that’s competitive?


Fusion Garage JooJoo

From the Singapore-based start-up Fusion Garage comes the JooJoo, and it’s the only other slate that’s available commercially right now. With a larger screen than the iPad, the 12-in, Intel Atom/ NVIDIA Ion powered tablet promises full Flash HD playback and has a darn decent interface running on top of the custom Linux platform.

What’s Hot: It’s available right now, which is more than what can be said about everyone else looking to be a contender.

What’s Not: The JooJoo is a misfit, being a web-only device. That’s right — no apps, no multi-tasking, no ebooks, and a five hour battery life for $500! What were they thinking?


Dell mini 5

It’s the smallest slate on the list, which may not be a bad thing. I mean, we do like something that’s truly portable, right? With its 5-in screen, it’s bigger than the iPhone but half the size of the iPad, and it runs Android on a speedy 1GHz Snapdragon processor. And unlike the iPad, which runs at a 4:3 screen aspect ratio, the mini 5 supports the 16:9 widescreen ratio, so movie watching should be a tad better experience. Of course, if the 5-in is not the one for you, Dell’s got 7-in and 10-in ‘Streak’ Slates on the cards due later this year. No word on pricing though, so far.

What’s Hot: A five-megapixel camera is a neat addition, and did I mention this baby doubles up as a phone as well?

What’s Not: The smaller screen may hold the mini back as a full-blown media consumption device. It’s too big to be a phone, so the feature is a little dubious in hindsight.


Lenovo Skylight netbooks

The Lenovo Skylight Smartbook has the guts of a netbook, but is the first look at a new series of devices running on a custom Lenovo platform called Skylight. What’s really worth watching out for is the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, which is a Windows 7 laptop with a full keyboard/ trackpad, Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of memory, eSATA, VGA- and HDMI-out. Also, amazingly, you can simply detach the 11.6-in 16:9 aspect-ratio touch display and then use it as a 1GHz Snapdragon powered 3G slate. Keyboard for those times when you need to hammer out all those emails, tablet for when you just want to lounge…

What’s Hot: The unique slate-keyboard combo.

What’s Not: Applications. Going down a custom platform route (Skylight), while the world develops apps for Android, Windows and the iPhone/ iPad, may well be too bold a move for Lenovo. Especially if it retails at the rumoured $1,000 price point. Ouch.


Archos 7 Android

Archos has long churned out portable media players, and are looking to ride the Android wave with the Archos 7 Home. Powered by a frugal 600-MHz ARM 9 processor, the Archos 7 Home includes a 7-in colour touch screen with a claimed seven hours of battery life.

What’s Hot: The form factor… just about. It’s also half the price of the iPad ($240).

What’s Not: One more device caught in between the smartphone and the netbook, except unlike the Dell, the internals are very, very weak.


Rumourware from Microsoft, Google

Notice the conspicuous absence of Google and Microsoft from this list? If the whispers and rumours have it, both are readying their own slates in stealth mode as we speak. Now while Google’s much touted Chrome OS-in-a-browser is an ideal candidate, it appears that Android will be the preferred platform for the Google ‘Pad’. And since it’s on Android, a few educated guesses are in order. First, it’ll be a far more open device than the iPad in terms of customisation, and will allow users to install third party programs without voiding the terms of warranty. And it most likely will support Flash and close integration with other Android devices.

Microsoft’s Courier device is rumoured to be a dual-screen folding device that’s part tablet, part eReader, and running on the same platform as the Microsoft Zune HD media player. The interface appears to be pen-based and focused on drawing and writing, with full built-in handwriting recognition and export to web.


The Personal Telegraph