TrustedReviews has some photos of several concept Tablet PCs from HP. The overall trend appears to be thinner and lighter. In all of these concept systems there is no CD/DVD player, no bulky hard drive, and even no radios.
The first part (no CD/DVD, hard drive) I agree with. That's what should be going on right now. Unfortunately, the trend over the last year has been toward bulkier, heavier Tablets with two spindles and so on. It's fine to offer larger Tablets which will often be less expensive, but this doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a smaller, thinner offering. Right now.
The article mentions that there should be plenty of battery power to enable these Tablet devices to run for longer periods of time. We'll have to see. It sounds like HP is suggesting that more focused devices is the way to go. Could be. But that would also assume that the prices have to drop substantially.
One of the power-hungry devices that they've removed is the radio. The idea is to leverage a "universal radio" that multiple devices could share as long as they come into contact with it. The idea is fine, however, once again, the success of it would depend on how low the prices will go.
Over the last year we've seen several concept Tablet PCs--a detachable screen from Toshiba, cool UMPCs from Intel, sleak large and small Tablets from Fujistu, as well as these devices from HP. And we can't leave out all the non-stop Apple rumors of a pending, multi-touch "Tablet-like" device, either. There appears to be a significant interest now adays in designing new and better devices that people really want. This is a good sign.
Next up I'd like to see each of these companies reach out to the Tablet community. How about HP, Toshiba, Intel and others showing up at a conference such as Mobile Connections and discussing some of what they're thinking for the future and getting feedback from the user and developer community? I know there are several of us Tablet developers that would really like to see first hand what some of these concept devices are.
[Link via Gottabemobile]



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