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Sure, the consumer electronics industry seems to be in the midst of a tablet frenzy, with dozens of Windows, Android, and WebOS tablets in the works. But there’s a select group of people who have never been satisfied waiting for the market to meet their needs. Instead they’ve been creating cheap Windows tablets by adding touchscreens to off-the-shelf netbooks for the past few years, and occasionally taking the extra step of ripping off the keyboard or tucking it away behind the screen.

The most recent such hack I’ve seen comes from an older netbook model: the Asus Eee PC 1000HD. This model is a 10 inch netbook with a 1024 x 600 pixel display and a 900MHz Intel Celeron processor. It initially shipped with a choice of Windows XP or Xandros Linux, but it looks like the hacker who decided to convert the netbook into a tablet has installed Windows 7, which includes some optimizations for touch input including larger taskbar icons and support for multitouch gestures. The device is still a bit rough around the edges, but it seems to work reasonably well.

Although the Eee PC 1000HD has officially been discontinued, you can still pick up some new or refurbished models for $250 or less. Throw in the price of a touchscreen and this project is still significantly cheaper than most modern Windows tablets.

You can check out a demo of the partially-finished tablet in action after the break.

via GadgetMix