It’s not Courier, but HP’s rumoured slate PC is here, now. Steve Ballmer and his hardware specialist Ryan Adsdorian just showed it off, and man is it cute. Updated with video.
Update: Adrian just spotted this official video:
“They’re more powerful than a phone and almost as powerful as a PC. Perfect for reading, surfing the web and taking entertainment on the go,” said Ballmer at his CES 2010 opening keynote. He says that it will be available this year.
HP says they’ll provide information on the slate after the keynote, but wouldn’t say anything in the meantime. We’re calling it a “slate” – well, Microsoft is calling it a slate, to differentiate from the pen-and-screen dealy that Bill Gates intro’d in 2001 – but that’s not its name.
It’s a Windows 7 touch device, so it’s nice in an accessible, netbooky (yeah, I’m guessing relatively cheap) context. But it’s not exactly the Courier we have lusted after from Microsoft in our dreams (and waking hours).
Here you can see it in its various modes, movie mode, ebook mode and PC mode:
Glenn Fairbairn
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 3:17 PMDoes it come with an isopropyl wipe dispenser to clean my grubby paw prints off the screen all the time?
Jason
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 4:50 PMThey’ve got to be kidding. What a piece of crap. Looks like it’s running a version of Windows 7 with a task bar! They can’t even be bothered modifying the software to suit the device. So basically they’ve ripped a laptop in half, shrunk the LCD screen half a bit, added touch to the surface, and then loaded up a copy of Windows 7? Won’t that be fun using your fingers to select applications. Let me guess, when you touch the surface a mouse pointer appears and you have to move it around? Wouldn’t surprise me. Could they even be bothered to try and build something a bit different? There is no innovation here. No imagination. No style. No substance. And no point buying one. HP and Microsoft should be embarrassed. How many researchers/designers/engineers and programmers do they have? Not enough obviously. Would have been impressive if they had released it about 15 years ago, but come on! Apple designers must be laughing their heads off. When Steve Job’s makes his rumoured iSlate announcement on January 27, all he has to do to top Microsoft is turn up with a bigger iPhone. Actually, a fat piece of cardboard with a few flashing lights would do it.
francis
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 5:30 PMDunno if it’ll be comfortable on the eyes reading off that LED screen. The eInk makes lots of sense in this case for e-readers.
Sam Klingner
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 5:50 PMBit of a let down, really…
Greg Randolph
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 6:01 PMGeez, you mean you don’t wear MS MicroSensitive (TM) plastic gloves? I always keep a box beside my touchscreen. Oh I know they’re hot and sweaty and my fingers look like white prunes but my screen is so clean!
Louis Thorp
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 6:09 PMI must say, this thing looks hot, i didn’t really see what the point of something like this would be, until i saw this! i think i’ll seriously consider getting one of these when they come out.
Tom Anderson
Friday, January 8, 2010 at 10:52 AMBut can the MS Slate be my phone, too? I have a Bluetooth headset!