The idea of powering a larger screen using a smartphone’s processor isn’t exactly new – Palm had the idea a while back with the maligned Foleo concept, and Motorola has expanded on it with the Atrix, but the Asus Padfone, which is set to be announced at Computex this week, looks like it’s taken one of the biggest criticisms of tablets – that they are just large phones – and turned it into a feature.
Android tablets? Sure, Microsoft exec Steve Guggenheimer’s heard of them. That doesn’t mean he thinks they’re worth a toot, at least not in this WSJ interview. A bold stance! And one that doesn’t really hold up.
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This is hardly a scientific test. But when an iPad screen and a Pixel Qi faced off head to head recently at Computex in broad daylight, there was one very clear winner. And one very murky “magical” device.
It’s become de rigeur for manufacturers to whack a Snapdragon processor in smartphones nowadays – even if people don’t quite understand what it means (or does), they want nothing less. Now, Qualcomm’s offering dual-core 1.2GHz chips to manufacturers.
The bad news: Intel’s new dual-core Atom processors won’t be appreciably more powerful than what’s in your netbook now. The good news: a Pine Trail netbook reference design Intel introduced today at Computex is only slightly thicker than an iPhone.
According to DigiTimes, MSI is going to be showing off a tablet next month at Computex. What it is: a 10-inch Atom-based system running Windows 7. What it’s not: one of the Tegra 2 tablets we’ve been yearning for.
EeePad is go, according to ASUS’ Chairman Jerry Shen, who will be showing it off this June at Computex as planned. However, a launch date has also been mentioned by the Taiwanese – an early-sounding late July.
