Microsoft unveils new tablet at Gizmodo Gallery in NYC

Dean Putney

#1 – 5:37 PM September 22, 2009

Ahem. wat? Microsoft Tablet? wat?

phisrow

#2 – 5:50 PM September 22, 2009

@Dean: Microsoft has been chasing the "pen computing" dream since forever, more or less.

XP Tablet PC edition has been around since 2001, and the original "Windows for Pen Computing" was an add-on for Windows 3.11.

They've never really broken out of a niche; but not for want of trying.

matt_w

#3 – 7:28 PM September 22, 2009

holy shit, it's penny's computer book from inspector gadget... i have wanted this since i was 5 years old!

what next? apple releasing a proton pack?!

Christopher Muir

#4 – 8:44 PM September 22, 2009

Totally agree. If this ends up being as half as good as it looks, I might re-switch.

Mark Sigal

#5 – 9:39 PM September 22, 2009

First off, this is a really cool looking prototype. Second, I would hearken to what others raise; namely, when will the real product ship and what's the OS and tools side of the equation, as Apple has pretty much shown this to be the bar for success.

Clearly, Apple learned this lesson from Microsoft (in PC 1.0) but MS feels long removed from those days (i.e., cultivating and growing a software centered ecosystem), especially in light of all of the legacy that they have to support.

Btw, here are some thoughts on where e-Book is headed:

Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time):
http://bit.ly/zOoEu

Check it out if interested.

Mark

iffizarticles

#6 – 2:27 AM September 23, 2009

Very clever.

Agies

#7 – 5:45 AM September 23, 2009

A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

dculberson

#8 – 7:10 AM September 23, 2009

I must say, that form factor is pretty f'in amazing. Please don't let it be bloated and slow and horrible.

Phisrow, I had a "Windows for Pen Computing" machine! It was an NCR.. 386sx based, I think? It was really impressive at the time, color screen, optional wireless, and housed in a zippered leather folio. It also had a 1.8" hard drive like the hard drive based iPods. It ended up being taken by an employee who apparently felt it was okay to not return stuff after you quit coming to work. [hell, I've done the same thing.. oh well.]

dculberson

#9 – 7:12 AM September 23, 2009

One enhancement: imagine a regular color screen on one side, and an eInk display on the other. Hmm...

tp1024

#10 – 7:58 AM September 23, 2009

Are they working on the XO-3 yet? The XO-1 has already transformed the computer landscape, the XO-2 is about to (as we can see), so what will the XO-3 be like?

Trent Hawkins

#11 – 8:31 AM September 23, 2009

Interesting. I would like to see how good it is with photoshop. I've been looking through some tablet net-book options and none of them are pressure sensitive. At least the ones i've seen so far.

Agies

#12 – 8:45 AM September 23, 2009

@11 No one seems willing to encourage people to press hard on LCDs. The Nintendo DS is theoretically pressure sensitive but I believe Nintendo actively discourages implementation of this functionality.

Trent Hawkins

#13 – 10:20 AM September 23, 2009

Frankly without pressure sensitive features photo shop is rather crippled. You can still do vector art, and I guess I can still use max, but not paint.