Comparing a real "Tablet" PC with the iPad or one of the other similar slates coming out is like comparing apples with oranges.
Tablets have handwriting capabilities, can join a domain, are a full replacement for a laptop.
The iPad and other simlar devices are a revisitation, using modern hardware of the Smart Display/Mira concept launched by MS around 2001.
Said that there are no doubts that at the beginning Tablets were underpowered and overpriced; the OS itself had some issues too but by now W7 Tablet OS is excellent: the nadwriting capabilities have improved tremendously and even my handwriting is correctly understood. I am specifically mentioning my handwriting because I did not attend schools in the US so my calligraphy is very different compared to the one thought here.
Is there room for improvements in the GUI? Absolutely yes although I do not think that porting WP7 to a Tablet would be the righ solution. The latter is too simplicistic and would not fit the complex operations allowed by a full computer machine.
Again one of these "Slate" devices would be perfect to be used to quick browse internet sites, control your TV or Media Center, handle a domotized house and, at least for some people, checking emails and reading a book. I said "for some people" because I use Exchange so in order to read emails I need Outlook and I like paper book not electronic ones.
Bottom line: "Slates" have their potential markets which is not the same one of "Tablets".
The problem is nowadays everybody is re-discovering hot water: it is like the frenziness about the cloud with etremes like the Google OS.
What is Google OS: nothing else but a jump in the past and the old paradigm of a dumb terminal connected to a mainframe. Sure the connection is wireless, with great joy of Comcast, AT&T n Co. dreaming of the amount of money people will spend for more and more expensive and metered connections, and the mainframe is somewhere in the World.
This post was edited by Fritzly on Friday, December 17, 2010 at 08:51.
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