This could be based on a shrunken Intel reference design for 10″ to 11″ Win 8 x86 tablets using the Clover Trail dual core Z2760 CPU, 1366 x 768 capacitive display (so that all Win 8 functions can be performed), optional active digitizer and pen (hopetully with palm rejection, and a silo for the pen), 9 hour+ battery life, 3G/4G ready (courtesy of Intel’s purchase of Infineon’s wireless chip business), WiFi a/b/g/n, WiDi, sub 9.4 mm (iPad 3) thickness, NFC (near field communications), WiFi Direct, 1.5 lb weight (iPad 3 is 1.44 lb)

Note that this is not Cedar Trail.  Intel probably had to skip Cedar Trail in order to present a compelling, read:  iPad beater, product.  Cue “The Empire Strikes Back” theme.  The Z2760 has a Core i5-like “burst mode” and hyperthreading (to appear as 4 virtual CPUs).  The key is its significantly-improved graphics over the much-maligned built-in Atom graphics.

Article with details at

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-57413493-64/intels-windows-8-tablet-checklist-goes-public/?tag=content;siu-container

Will all this come in at or below $600?

I am waiting patiently for the first affordable Windows 8 tablet that will allow me to ink like used to do on my old Motion Computing Tablet.  Affordable to me is under $1,000.00.

Not excited.  I guess more competiton in the tablet field is okay but the last thing we want is MS ruining another industry.  I strongly suspect that they’ll find there isn’t much room for profits, not even close to the levels ms and intel have been accustomed to.  I expect this product to be less successful than the touchpad was.

 The “burst mode” is something they introduced with Medfield and it’s similar to the Core i-series “Turbo Boost” feature that dynamically over clocks as needed unless the system is too hot to allow for it.

For the Medfield Z2460, this means it actually operates at 1.3GHz but can “burst mode” to 1.6GHz.

Clover Trail adopts many of the same optimizations as Medfield, including a more SoC like MCM packaging.  So should be ideal for tablet usage.

Medfield isn’t intended to run Windows though, and thus why Clover Trail will be more ideal for Windows 8 tablets.

While Windows 8 will provide a more tablet friendly UI with Metro and like Android and iOS it’ll have power optimizations and more efficient app design to be both faster than traditional windows and more energy efficient.

Clover Trail will be basically replacing Oak Trail, so it’s providing a die shrink from 45nm to 32nm and should significantly reduce thermals and cost. 

Cedar Trail, for example, reduced the cost of the chipset by about a third from the cost of the previous Pine Trail chipset.  While Clover Trail is also reducing the chipset to a single MCM/SoC packaging, which should further help reduce cost and system design.

So it could be that we may indeed see sub $600 Windows 8 tablets with Clover Trail.

For Medfield Z2560, the 1.6GHz version meant for tablets, there is already rumors that we will likely see $300 tablet with Android, to give some idea of how low they’re pushing this now.

iPad is just a waste of money. Used it for couple of days (with Excitement though). Now i seldom touch it.

Eagerly waiting for Win 8. Want the full function.

wtf!!!!!!MS built the industry as it is today,,,bo one is forcing anyone to buy MS, Apple, android, balckberry, webos,linux  etc etc etc, heres a suggestion,dont buy anything,,that will show em,,

I just hope HP will eventually resolve their thermal design issues.  Seems like everyone I know has had their HPs overheat.  Also, hope it doesn’t use an atom processor… at the least it should use the AMD E-XXX to provide acceptable performance and allow for more than 2GB of RAM.  That’s the biggest weakness with these Windows slates.. using the Atom NXXX… too underpowered and slow.