HP Looking to Undercut iPad Pricing With 3G-Capable Slate Device

[Eidorian]

You forgot to list the new Pinetrail Atom cpu which have a slight better gma3150 gpu and suppose to better on battery life. Not to mention the dual core model is a true dual core unlike the N330 atom, which mean less power usage also.

Add a Broadcom HD as well for h.264 and Flash acceleration. Pine Trail isn't much of an improvement over the previous generation of Atom to be honest. The primary goal is to lower production costs for Intel by moving to a 2 chip (CPU + I/O) system.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of Tegra and Android/Linux unless Microsoft can literally pull some magic touch OS beyond shoe horning in Windows 7. (Not that I have any complaints about Windows 7)

 

[Niko03]

This would be a good decision regardless of competition. As aggressive as the iPad pricing appears, it needs to be a little bit better for 3G. Your post has it precisely, Wifi pricing for 3G included. No premium. After all, monthly 3G IS a premium cost, so why hit people for 4-9 months worth of data just for the privilege?

What a mistake Apple has made here. Any figures for the typical iTunes Store Customer who has an iPhone vs. iPod Touch. Just a guess, but I'd bet iPhone customers spend a hell of a lot more. And I'd be willing to bet the iPad will follow the same pattern. 3G connectivity = a lot of spur of the moment purchases.

The prices Apple has put out there is for an unlocked contract free 3g model.

I would think that ATT and the other telecoms would offer a subsidized iPad with a two year contract.

 

[Runthefour]

You forgot to list the new Pinetrail Atom cpu which have a slight better gma3150 gpu and suppose to better on battery life. Not to mention the dual core model is a true dual core unlike the N330 atom, which mean less power usage also.

You also forgot to mention the few Chinese and Korean MID device running Ubuntu MID edition.

Hmmm, I wrote N280 where I wanted to type N470. The 280 doesn't use twice but ten times the power due to its chipset. The netbook variant is single core. Performance of A9 and pineview is about the same per Hz. The atom runs faster but the A9 has dualcore. My point is that Atom doesn't offer performance advantage, comes at a battery life penalty and all that to be able to run Windows 7 which isn't the most efficient OS in the world either having never been designed with limited power envelopes in mind.

I did forgot Ubuntu MID. It's up there with Android to run on your tablet.

There are other manufacturers of ARM cores but ones above are better known in the west.

 

[M.Fantastique]

there is a bit of a difference between making something "work" and making something "work well".

The iphone os is 3 years old, and yet there is still nothing that is clearly better.

I could make a car in my garage that was faster than a ferrari for a fraction of the cash.
But to make one that was actually better would cost more than the real thing.

Well, now there's an analogy that sucks
Who says that it'll be about making a touch-based interface for a fraction of the money apple has invested in iphone os? You're missing the point entirely. If Microsoft set out to make such an interface, technically there would be no problem putting this on top of what they have already (which is what I was explaining to you guys). And i seriously doubt "cash" would be an issue.
The sad thing is just that it always takes them an awful lot of time to recognize what should be done.

As for the claim that nothing is better than iphone os: Well, that's just brainless fanboi-talk. It depends on what you're looking for. If you would like some freedom in the choice of your applications, freedom in configuring your system and using it in any way you want, then there could hardly be a worse choice than iphone os.

 

[bloodycape]

I dunno from the review I read Pinetrail shows some noticeable improvements in the day to day stuff. And once the dual core model fully comes out we should see some real good stuff there over the previous model.

I like you am also interested in Tegra2, but at the same a bit weary. I know the Toshiba TG01 had the original Tegra cpu, but that had a solid WM6.1 build(never had a problem with WM as for years it was the only real game in town in the PDA market with a color screen and video playback) over a poorly coded custom Toshiba interface. All the video I have see of it make it look really slow, and is kind of a battery hog. Not sure if it was really the software or cpu(look at the HD2 running the 1ghz Snapdragon cpu and good going on there). Then again Android could prove to show Tegra and Tegra2 real power. I currently have the HTC Eris and my friend with the iphone always asks me to look stuff up because I currently have flash lite support on my phone and is kind of jealous certain sties work for me.

 

[JeffDM]

Here's a mobile phone with a 16:9 screen:

You really want a tablet shaped like that? Really???

That didn't show up for me, but your LG Chocolate BL 40 example is actually wider than 16:9 (1.77:1), it's actually 2.3:1. I'm surprised you couldn't tell that it's much wider than 16:9, the screen is more than twice as tall as it is wide.

It seems to me that 1.5:1 would have been a better all-around compromise, because there are so many media aspect ratios, I don't think it makes much sense to go to the extreme ends of the range, either end. I'd outright exclude cinemascope-type ratios like that phone as an outlier.

But a successful tablet would be...

That might not change, we don't know if a Windows tablet would ever be successful on the broad market.

 

[Bytor65]

It seems to me that 1.5:1 would have been a better all-around compromise, because there are so many media aspect ratios, I don't think it makes much sense to go to the extreme ends of the range, either end. I'd outright exclude cinemascope-type ratios like that phone as an outlier.

Either 3:2 or 4:3 are good choices for a tablet. The probably went with with 4:3 for the standard computer resolution (1024x768).

Both would be more suitable for web and reading books/pdf. They are both close to the ratio of an A4 sheet of paper.

16:9 is not a good choice for general use IMO. Good for my TV, but IMO it is too skinny either way you flip it.

 

[LagunaSol]

That didn't show up for me, but your LG Chocolate BL 40 example is actually wider than 16:9 (1.77:1), it's actually 2.3:1. I'm surprised you couldn't tell that it's much wider than 16:9, the screen is more than twice as tall as it is wide.

Ah, you're right, it's actually 21:9 (I assumed the angle of the photo was just playing tricks with my eyes), but even a 16:9 tablet would be a silly choice when that tablet will be used primarily in portrait mode. Tablets are not dedicated movie-watching machines, and should not be designed as such.

Bytor65 is right: Apple made the correct call at 4:3.

 

[transmaster]

A fellow Old Time computer Techie

mdelaney123 a fellow Sinclair ZX-81 Computer user, or did you use the later Timex Sinclair 1000? The Sinclair had a Zilog Z80A, 3.25MHz CPU and maxed out at 64K of Ram, the kit for the ZX-81 was $99.00 I remember how fascinated we where when we first spotted the ad's for this little machine in the Scientific American magazine. We built a bunch of them. At the time they where really popular with the Astronomers at the University of Wyoming to point and track their big IR telescope. The Apple II was around but they where so expensive we poor college students just couldn't afford them. Then the IBM PC was introduced 1981 and the Apple/PC wars started Remember the Charlie Chaplain ad's. And as we can see here they continue to this day.

 

[cumanzor]

Either 3:2 or 4:3 are good choices for a tablet. The probably went with with 4:3 for the standard computer resolution (1024x768).

Both would be more suitable for web and reading books/pdf. They are both close to the ratio of an A4 sheet of paper.

16:9 is not a good choice for general use IMO. Good for my TV, but IMO it is too skinny either way you flip it.

16:9 is ok on my screen. But it's a no go in portrait mode, and a table with a 16:9 would too uncomfortable for me. 4:3 is ok, BUT, 1024x768 isn't.

 

[b0ned0me]

My argument on this particular thing is wouldn't it be better to let us buyers of Apple devices decide if we want to burn our batteries a little faster by installing and using the Flash player, rather than Apple making such decisions for us?

For some definitions of 'us', I agree with you completely. For you or I and probably most readers of this board, having the option would be great, even if it was just a case of having it installed but disabled except for emergencies (in a flashblock stylee).
But given the state of most computers that are not managed by an expert (crawling with malware, 5+ toolbars installed, desktop completely covered in icons, 35 items in system tray, etc) I believe for a mass-market device this would result in 95%+ having Flash installed and permanently active within a week of purchase - they won't 'decide', people will just click on whatever they are asked to by their favourite sites. If Almighty Steve really is right about Flash being iDeath to iDevices, then a lot of people would soon be complaining about how rubbish their expensive Apple gadget is and his Steveiness wouldn't want that.

In my opinion, most people can't be trusted to make sensible choices about their computing devices and the internet, they're just not nerdy enough. So the stance Apple have taken (lock it down/dumb it down, kiss the geek market goodbye and hope Average Consumer likes it) has some logic to it.

I have no idea if it will actually work, but I certainly hope so, because while an iPad isn't my cup of tea, I think the general form factor has a great deal of potential and if Apple can turn this into a mass market, then one of the niche players will probably cook up a variation that suits me. And a generic cheap knockoff (with a terrier-resistant cover) might suit my mum.