Old skool
Of course we don't expect Intel and Microsoft to be absent from the tablet market for long, but right now the form-factor du jour is all about mobile chips and mobile operating systems. So it's a bit surprising to see LG launch a tablet with yesteryear specs.
Netbooknews seems to have been the fist to spot the launch, in Korea, of the LG E-Note H1000B. This is a tablet, but it contains an Intel Atom Z530 chip and runs on Microsoft's Windows 7 starter edition. Many readers will remember that Wintel tablets - even keyboardless ones - we're available for years before Apple redefined the tablet. Who can forget the UMPC?
So there's a distinctly retro feel to this new LG tablet, launched amid a frenzy of Android responses to the iPad. Our Korean being on the rusty side, it's hard to ascertain what LG thinks will make this product a success when so many Wintel tablets before it have flopped, but other retro features include a stand and, shudder, a stylus. The netbooknews report has the price at $850, which just seems silly.
Maybe LG is just keeping Intel and Microsoft sweet until they get their tablet acts together. Intel will deliver lower-power platforms such as Moorestown and Oak Trail soon, while Microsoft is surely working on a tablet-optimised version of at least one of its operating systems. In the meantime it will be interesting to see if a) the E-Note H1000B makes it out of Korea, and b) anyone buys it.
