Intel StudyBook Windows 7 tablet now available for $699 (3x the promised price)

It’s been almost a year since Intel unveiled its new StudyBook tablet design. Now the 7 inch Windows tablet is finally available for purchase — but it’ll cost a bit more than the initial estimates.

Intel initially suggested that tablets based on its reference design could sell for as little as $200 (the company also said they’d ship last summer). But if you want to get your hands on a StudyBook today, you’ll have to pay $699. That’s how much Dynamism is charging for the tablet.

Intel StudyBook

The Intel StudyBook was originally positioned as a rugged tablet designed for use in educational settings. But as a tablet with a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen display, a rugged water and dust resistant case, and Windows 7 software, it could theoretically be used as a general purpose tablet.

Unfortunately in the age of Windows 8 tablets, the StudyBook’s specs look a bit outdated.

It features a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom Z650 Oak Trail processor, GMA 600 graphics, 1GB of DDR2 memory, and a 32GB solid state drive. The tablet measures 8.1″ x 5.3″ x 0.7″ and weighs 1.2 pounds.

It has a 1024 x 600 pixel display, a 2800mAh battery for up to 6 hours of run time, front and rear cameras, microSD and HDMI ports, and 802.11n WiFi.

There’s at least one feature that helps justify a relatively high price for this tablet: It has an integrated 3G modem and a SIM card slot. But unless you really need 3G, a 7 inch display, or a rugged case, you’ll probably get a much better Windows experience if you opt for a Windows 8 tablet with a newer Intel Atom Clover Trail processor.

via The Digital Reader

Posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2013, 5:30 pm by Brad Linder | 24 Comments

1stkorean

it is so UGLY and expensive and 7 inches, Nexus 7 is beautyful and a lot cheaper
NoOne

Not that this product is ideal by any stretch… It’s a dog. But you are almost literally comparing apples and oranges here. Nexus 7 is A) Android, B) ARM, C) Not ruggedized or water proof. This is) Windows 7, B) x86, C) Ruggedized and water resistant. Those are VERY different beasts. The only real point of similarity at all is having a 7″ capacitive touch panel. That said I believe even that screen is better on the Nexus 7…

This really is a dog, wow. That said it’ll run touch optimized CLR applications, and there are a LOT of them in health care, so it’ll probably actually sell well into that market, if they soft touch was bio resistant and the SSD supports full disk encryption it would be a slam dunk product. Which isn’t even remotely what Intel was targeting 2 years ago when they tried to trash the iPad by announcing it.
Alex

To the mainstream customer it doesn’t matter what’s inside, it’s what it can do and how much it costs. I know us geeks understand the specifics, but the end user won’t care. And the end user decides if a product lives or dies.
Alex

Expensive? There’s a reason.

Atom Z670 sells for $75 as of May 2011 and the price hasn’t changed since the introduction. We don’t have to remind you much that the price is way too steep for any tablet CPU as ARM-based processors like Nvidia’s Tegra 2 sell for about $15 [...]
Source: http://fudzilla.com/processors/item/22829-runner-up-atom-z650-silently-launched

Regarding this: Intel initially suggested that tablets based on its reference design could sell for as little as $200.

Can’t see how they can suggest a RRP of $200 when the chip itself costs at least $50. Add in chipset/display/OS/SSD and OEM margins and the figure doesn’t make sense.
1stkorean

Read my post again for the first time! I compared nothing about the 2 devices except for the looks and price. Making that apples and apples or oranges and oranges.
joe

Okay…

The Nexus 7 is ugly. A Ferrari is beautiful. Just comparing looks. Apples to apples and oranges to oranges, right?
Jim

I’d get this if it had current specs and a digitizer but the same form factor.
Rico

For that price, consumers will compare this with the iPad and say “meh”.
1stkorean

i guess it would depend on the apples are they green or are they red, same applies to the oranges are they orange or are they redish orange or orangish red! i think in america you call it semantics
http://twitter.com/frauhottelmann frauhottelmann

You can get a Thinkpad tablet 2 for that price
Chad Page

1024×600? This can’t run Windows 8-style apps, and with the Z6xx it can’t run Linux properly either. Good luck getting Win7 licenses, Intel/Dynanism.
CyberGusa

The only problem with Linux is graphic drivers because of the Imagination PowerVR based GMA 600, but it’s not as hard to run Linux on it as it used to be as they’ve had progress on getting proper driver support…

It’s just the newer ATOM GMA’s had to start all over, so it’s more a issue with the newer Cedar Trail and Clover Trail ATOMs that also use Imagination PowerVR GPU based GMAs…

While Dynanism is a Japanese export company and has nothing directly to do with Intel!

You are right that the 1024×600 resolution won’t support W8 modern UI but just like with netbooks they could always use virtual resolution to get it to work… It’s too high priced though, but that’s not unusual coming from Dynamism…
CyberGusa

“Can’t see how they can suggest a RRP of $200 when the chip itself costs at least $50. Add in chipset/display/OS/SSD and OEM margins and the figure doesn’t make sense.”

A 7″ ARM tablets with low end specs can be made cheap enough to sell for less than $150. So adding another $50 to the cost could still net below $200.

However, Dynanism is hardly known for charging the lowest prices… along with a large enough battery to provide up to 6 hours of run time.

Mind this is a older ATOM made with the 45nm FAB and 3W max TDP rating. So consumes much more power than the 32nm Clover Trail that can power sip like ARM SoCs.

Typically, small tablets made with these older ATOMs usually get less than 3 hours run time. So part of the premium pricing is probably from a larger capacity battery, especially if it’s a high density battery to help limit the increase in weight and size… though can’t really precisely tell because mAh rating isn’t very accurate measurement of capacity by itself but to get up to 6 hours it definitely has to be larger than the battery typically given for small tablets.
strider_mt2k

I really don’t know what these guys are thinking anymore, but I’m assuming someone does because they keep DOING it.
fakthem

do they think we are all stupid?
Alex

The OS also costs money, compared to $0 for Android. Also, looks like it comes with an SSD which is more expensive (required by the OS?)

Ah, I understand now. By a $200 tablet Intel probably meant an Android tablet. But why would one need an Intel CPU in an Android tablet? ARM CPUs seem more than adequate for the task.
CyberGusa

Note quite, you can use pretty much the same parts as a ARM tablet, just a x86 processor instead of ARM.

Clover Trail ATOM for example uses the same LP-DDR2 RAM and eMMC storage as ARM tablets do and build costs are about the same.

While something like Windows 7 Starter Edition could be provided for less than $50 to OEM. Or they could have gone free with desktop Linux or just a version of Android like they did for Medfield Smart Phones, etc.

Mind, netbooks like the Asus X101 were actually sold for about $200 and that was for a 10″ system. So making a basic 7″ could have reasonably been done. Smaller LCD, etc means lower costs…

However, this was before people really got used to the idea that less than 5 hours run time was junk and it was designed over a year ago. So doesn’t take advantage of any of the new improvements that the more modern Clover Trail tablets offer.
Alex

I think all your points above are valid. However, the problem is: current tablets are good enough. They last 8-10 hours on a charge, play videos and let you browse the internet and play games. From the end user’s POV, the only thing that Intel can offer is support for desktop-like computing on a tablet. The OEMs might think it’s a good feature, but so far people have shown that they don’t value the desktop so much to use it in a tablet. Perhaps the desktop paradigm is not very well suited for a mobile device.

In regards to lowering the price, there is one issue with that. Intel cannot lower prices much.

I wrote in a different post that Intel’s business is built around high margins. Intel CEO said in an interview, they extract two margins, one from designing the chip, and another from manufacturing it. They spend their revenue on maintaining their market by “bribing” the OEMs, spending on R&D on new architecture, and spending on new fabs with better tech processes, these are 3 key pillars of their strategy, and maintaining them takes a lot of money. The ARM market is a volume market with low margins. Now Intel’s main business of high margins is shrinking, gradually transforming into a much larger low-margin market. Naturally, Intel are trying to upsell the tablet to stop the decay of the high-margin market, and order to upsell something, one has to provide added value, or at least persuade the buyer of added value. We’ll see how well that works out.
CyberGusa

The only thing I disagree with is that if existing tablet were good enough then they wouldn’t keep on trying to push performance and increase features and options!

Services like Citrix are specifically because people do want and need to do more and get around existing tablet limitations by accessing desktops remotely.

So there is a difference for settling for less from actually being happy with less! There’s lots of things we want but we settle because it’s more practical to do so but doesn’t mean we’re happy for settling.
QuanahHarjo

…that’s not what Citrix is for. Citrix has been around a long while, and gets tons more use on desktops than tablets.
CyberGusa

Sorry but the point of Citrix services is so you can work productively from any location!

It doesn’t matter if more desktop users use it than tablet users, which is arguable because many companies are using tablets as well as traditional PC’s, but the point is there are people who need to be productive and services like Citrix allow being more productive than the device being used can otherwise allow!

So the very fact there is demand for such services for mobile devices shows there is a need and market for it!
QuanahHarjo

Don’t particularly want to argue, but after administering Citrix for two different companies, remote users weren’t the point, they were just a nicety that usually didn’t work very well. The point was having central distribution and consistency of enterprise applications without having to install them on individual workstations. I was working with WinFrame and MetaFrame, but XenApp doesn’t seem to be any different in that regard.

I suppose you’re talking about GoToMyPC? Not the first thing I think of when I hear “Citrix”, I guess.
QuanahHarjo

I do agree though that current tablets aren’t quite “good enough” yet. Power consumption, durability, and screen usability in less-than-optimal situations are still lacking. Modularity of storage is pretty poor. I don’t think raw power is necessarily what’s needed though, as much as increased efficiency in every direction. More gflops will come with time.

For the people “wanting more” and feeling the need to use office apps on the road…the Core-powered laplets/tabtops/transformers are out and about. Learn to love the Win8 for a while.
CyberGusa

Let’s not confuse how individual people view a service from how IT views it!

Like you said, you were administrating but the point to users is as Citrix itself states… quote:

“Work better. Live better.

We believe that your work and your personal life are not mutually exclusive.

This belief inspires us to build solutions that enable a seamless
continuum to give you the shortest distance between work and life. When you can unplug but stay connected, when you can work productively from any location, when you can choose the best device to use at any moment, work will complement your life, rather than compete with it. In this new era, work is no longer a place – it’s something you do anywhere inspiration strikes. This is better for people, better for IT and better for business.”

Regardless, the point stands that the fact such services are used for mobile devices at all shows there’s a demand to be able to do more on mobile devices than is presently possible!

Intel StudyBook Windows 7 tablet now available for $699 (3x the promised price)

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