Hewlett-Packard will announce its own twist on the tablet PC on Thursday, with a new kind of transformable computer that features a detachable keyboard. Tablet PCs are essentially 3- to 4-pound "ultra-portable" notebook PCs with touch screens, wireless Internet connections, and speech and handwriting input. Some, known as convertibles, have screens that can rotate 180 degrees and fold down to create a tablet. Others follow a more traditional, tablet-only route.
HP's Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 does both. The machine can be used like a notebook or like a tablet, thanks to a special detachable keyboard, and can also serve as a primary PC through a docking station.
HP designed the machine to be small and modular to solve some of the problems of the tablet. A person can carry the tablet portion of the HP computer, which weighs 3 pounds, into a meeting to take notes, view documents, and write e-mails and short messages using the touch-screen pen. Software available from Microsoft and third parties will allow tablet PC users to use wireless networking to shoot pen-based instant messages and e-mail back and forth and collaborate on documents.
But when consumers want to draft a longer document or an e-mail, they can attach the keyboard and use the device like a traditional notebook.
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News source: C|net
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