Dell, today, officially introduced the Latitude XT, its first product in the tablet category.
Though it's just one notebook, Dell's entry is sure to cause a stir. It's a modest niche of computing that hasn't really gotten off the ground yet. And the interest of the second-largest PC maker in the world can't help but have an impact on the market.
Currently tablet PCs comprise just 2.4 percent of the worldwide notebook market, according to IDC. That's about 2.5 million units shipped total. But as Dell joins other high-profile tablet makers like Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Gateway, and others, the category is expected to grow to 12.3 million units and 6.3 percent of the notebook market by 2011, IDC said. And as volumes go up, prices are sure to go down.
The Latitude XT is aimed chiefly at commercial markets, and Dell says it initially tried to address several of the key complaints expressed by typical tablet users: that they're too bulky, the screen isn't viewable in direct sun, poor handwriting recognition, and inadequate battery life.
Starting at the hefty price of $2,499, the Latitude XT has a 12.1-inch LED-backlit screen, a 1.06-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Solo processor, 1GB of memory, and a 40GB hard drive. It comes with Windows Vista Business edition or XP Tablet Edition. The whole device weighs 3.57 pounds, and has about 5 hours of battery life. It uses capacitive touch input, which recognizes both fingers and an included pen for inputting data. The pen also comes with a right-click button.
Dell says it will begin to take orders and ship the Latitude XT by the end of the year.
View: Direct2Dell Blog
News source: CNET News.com
Though it's just one notebook, Dell's entry is sure to cause a stir. It's a modest niche of computing that hasn't really gotten off the ground yet. And the interest of the second-largest PC maker in the world can't help but have an impact on the market.
Currently tablet PCs comprise just 2.4 percent of the worldwide notebook market, according to IDC. That's about 2.5 million units shipped total. But as Dell joins other high-profile tablet makers like Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Gateway, and others, the category is expected to grow to 12.3 million units and 6.3 percent of the notebook market by 2011, IDC said. And as volumes go up, prices are sure to go down.
The Latitude XT is aimed chiefly at commercial markets, and Dell says it initially tried to address several of the key complaints expressed by typical tablet users: that they're too bulky, the screen isn't viewable in direct sun, poor handwriting recognition, and inadequate battery life.
Starting at the hefty price of $2,499, the Latitude XT has a 12.1-inch LED-backlit screen, a 1.06-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Solo processor, 1GB of memory, and a 40GB hard drive. It comes with Windows Vista Business edition or XP Tablet Edition. The whole device weighs 3.57 pounds, and has about 5 hours of battery life. It uses capacitive touch input, which recognizes both fingers and an included pen for inputting data. The pen also comes with a right-click button.
Dell says it will begin to take orders and ship the Latitude XT by the end of the year.
View: Direct2Dell Blog News source: CNET News.com
I have a 1.1GHz Pentium M Latitude and it runs Vista OK. Not as well as the 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Latitude, but still pretty well.
And look better too
why tablet pc failed?
here some reason:
1- its expensive
2- low specs
3- bad quality build
No one wants to carry around a 4 pound slow piece of junk just to take notes.
[rant]
HA! Fat chance that's going to last! I got a E1505 last year, and almost exactly after one year, the battery life started decreasing. In one fell swoop it decreased to what ubuntu said was 15% capacity. And one week after that, neither vista nor ubuntu can detect a battery. And apparently this isn't an exception, from all the comments scattered online.
[/rant]
I agree with ivdubvr6i. This is seriously hideous
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.