March 19th, 2008
Dell's tablet, take two
Dell took its time with tablets. It wasn’t until last December that the company finally released its first tablet PC, the convertible Latitude XT–years after competitors such as HP, Gateway and Lenovo introduced their own versions. But it looks like the results have been good enough to convince Dell to stick with this niche for now.
Engadget has posted basic specs and a fuzzy image of what appears to be Dell’s next tablet, the Latitude XT2. The design is unremarkable (so far), but the Latitude X2 will use Intel’s new Montevina notebook platform, which should be released by early June. The Latitude X2 may also have an internal optical drive and an eSATA port for connecting external drives. The advantage of the eSATA interface is that it has a faster maximum transfer rate than USB 2.0 or FireWire 400/800. The Latitude XT2 should be available in November.
Reviews of current tablet PCs:
- Asus R1E [TabletPCReview.com]
- Dell Latitude XT [TabletPCReview.com]
- Fujitsu LifeBook T4220 [ZDNet]
- HP Pavilion tx2000z series [ZDNet]
- Lenovo ThinkPad X61 series [TabletPCReview.com]
- Toshiba Portege M700 series [ZDNet]
John Morris is a former executive editor at CNET Networks and senior editor at PC Magazine. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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