tablets

Update: Hands-on impressions added below.

LAS VEGAS--At its Thursday morning CES press conference, Dell briefly announced plans to release a slate-style tablet PC, in the same vein as the rumored Apple Tablet or the HP/Microsoft prototype tablet shown earlier in the week.

Details are scarce, but the 5-inch device would be smaller than rival ideas coming from HP and (presumably) Apple. Describes as a "tablet concept," there's no guarantee the product would ever reach the public in its current form.

Update: We had a chance to check out the device behind closed doors after the press … Read more

With all the hype around Apple's still-mythical tablet, it's easy to forget that HP has been making a 12-inch consumer tablet for several years.

In fact, the product that started life as the HP tx1000, and is now called the TouchSmart tm2, is one of the only convertible tablet laptops aimed at mainstream entertainment consumers; most tablets are intended for medical, educational, or other specialized markets.

While convertible tablet laptops, which have screens that rotate 180 degrees to fold down over their keyboards, have never been a mainstream product, there's a certain appeal to using the multitouch … Read more

UPDATE: Hands-on impressions added below. The IdeaPad U1 Hybrid is our Best of CES 2010 Award Winner in the category of Computers and Hardware. Also be sure to check out our hands-on impressions of Lenovo's other Netbooks and smartbooks from CES.

Tablets are rapidly becoming the hot chatter-buzzword of 2010. Netbooks were very 2009. Combine them both and perhaps you end up with a great idea--at least, so hopes Lenovo. In one of the boldest moves in laptop technology at CES, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid doesn't just flip its screen to become a tablet--the screen detaches completely as … Read more

While many have been fixated on when Apple will announce a new tablet product, The Wall Street Journal says it has found out when the device will actually be available to customers.

Sources have told the Journal that a 10- or 11-inch touch-screen tablet computer will begin shipping in March. Another source says that there are at least two different finishes for the device that Apple is either still deciding on or perhaps planning to charge different prices for each.

Though there's been a lot of speculation about the tablet, there are no confirmed details yet. Industry observers are anticipating a late January announcement (… Read more

So, that rumored Apple event everyone has been jawing about these past few weeks? It's on and it's going to be a big deal.

Sources in a position to know tell me Apple is indeed planning a media event later this month at which the company will announce a major new product. The gathering is to be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, a space Apple often uses for media events like this. According to other sources, it will occur on Wednesday, January 27, not Tuesday, January 26, as had been rumored. … Read more

So, Bono has been listening to his manager and soaking up the idea that the Internet needs to be locked down before it ruins the video industry. This selfless act of Cassandra-like prophesying involves talking about how great the U.S. is at stopping child porn and how great the Chinese are at stopping anything they don't like. We point out a few holes in the theory there. Also, Google is doing everything. Seriously, if you even think fleetingly that Google might do something, well, apparently it already is.

Freescale Semiconductor has designs on new "smartbook" tablet computers and to prove it it's rolling out a second-generation reference design at the Consumer Electronics Show.

To say that tablet concepts are all the rage right now is, of course, an understatement. With a media frenzy over a reportedly imminent Apple tablet, companies like Freescale, which will supply the silicon guts of these newfangled computers, are eager to show concepts that they are peddling to device makers.

Freescale is pushing designs "with prices less than $200"--according to a statement--that integrate its version of the power-efficient ARM processor: the i.MX515 chip based on ARM Cortex-A8 technology.

Here's how Freescale describes the design: it will "provide instant-on functionality, persistent connectivity and all-day battery life." The tablet that the chipmaker will show at CES will run both the Android and… Read more

Sure, every blogger worth his salt has weighed in on the long-rumored Apple tablet that may or may not be--its possible size, shape, specs, debut date, and on and on. Now offering up a perspective on the matter is a high-profile tech industry executive, Kai-fu Lee, who until recently was the head of Google's China operations.

It seems that Lee, who's now working to foster entrepreneurship in China, wrote on his Chinese language blog earlier this week that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be releasing a tablet PC in January, and expects to produce a voluminous 10 million … Read more

Whatever news Apple has up its sleeve--tablet or no--it appears something will be announced on January 26, if an unnamed source of Fox News' turns out to be correct.

The Financial Times reported last week that Apple had rented out the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for several days in late January, immediately leading to speculation that the event might give the world the first glimpse of a tablet device rumored to be in the offing in Cupertino. And now, Fox News writer Clayton Morris says he has a source at Apple who's confirmed that … Read more