CNET apparently got their hands on Dell’s prototype 10″ tablet backstage @ CES, and they’ve written up a review here. What did they think of it? Not much apparently: “a slightly jazzed-up smartphone, rather than a true tablet PC”.
A bit of a surprise, because this isn’t the 5″ Dell slate running Android. This is a 10″ tablet built for Dell by Stantum, running Windows 7 that they’re comparing to a smartphone. Dell apparently cut some corners though and put in a slower-than-usual Atom processor (the Z520), and used a resistive touchscreen as opposed to the capacitive variety found on the iPhones and iPods. Resistive screens are cheaper and are pressure-sensitive so they work with any pointer (finger, stylus, gloved hand, etc) – but they also tend to have a “mushy” feel. CNET was impressed with the multi-touch capabilities of the screen – it can track up to 10 separate touch inputs simultaneously.
Still, it doesn’t seem as though Dell broke any new ground with this device.
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Mike is a former sysadmin and embedded developer, who worked on several prototype tablet devices way back in the dot-com era. He's also a non-practicing physicist and a big fan of anything resembling a tablet computer (or a telescope).