What do you get if you take the guts of a netbook and cram them into a 10 inch tablet PC without a keyboard? An ever-growing class of relatively inexpensive tablets which are rushing to fill a niche that has yet to show any real consumer demand. The latest entry is the iiView iPad, which weighs less than 2 pounds, runs Windows 7 Starte rEdition, and sports a 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen display.
On the inside, the vPad is pretty much all netbook. It has a 1.6GHz Intel atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive and sells for $499. Sure, that makes it kind of expensive for a netbook, but the price bump isn’t surprising considering you get a touchscreen display and a lighter-than-netbook case.
For $699 you can get a souped up model with 2G of RAM, a 320Gb hard drive and integrated 3G. There are a few other $599 configurations in between. The web site claims that even the higher end models come with Windows 7 Starter, but that seems a bit fishy to me, since Microsoft doesn’t license Windows 7 Starter for devices with 320GB hard drives and 2GB of RAM.
What say you? Are you looking for a touchscreen tablet running Windows 7 Starter? Or would you rather have something with an OS designed for touchscreens such as a Google Android-powered tablet or an iPad?
via Notebooks.com
I’m not sure if I’m the only one, but I look at that picture and think that something is missing. As in, where is the keyboard? It does look funny when you think about it. I know what a tablet is, but it’s a bit counter productive if you really think about it. It’s not like you’re saving money buying this over a netbook. You might be shaving a few millimeters and ounces but that’s about it. It’s like choosing a unicycle over a bike. Get past the novelty and realize that one wheel isn’t the best option for traveling.
Just my thoughts when viewing that photo. It just looks funny to me.
Isn’t this taking the whole “i” thing a bit far? I liked the “iWonder” name on further reflection, especially at that price: iWonder if it’s actually any good, hmm, who cares for $100? How long till we see the maritime-friendly iiCap’n?
Every tech blog should get together and stop commenting on these particular crappy tablets that are all the exact same. These things have been out forever and they still suck.
[Crap tablet] has a 1.6GHz Intel atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 160GB [ or 250 GB] hard drive.
They all do because they are the same tablet.
The exact same except for the brand name (usually).
here 😉
http://www.iiviewpad.com/img/Vpad-01.jpg
This particular machine has netbook internals but it is no substitute for a netbook. For one thing, it lacks a physical keyboard. Worse still, it starts at $499 when you can buy a standard netbook for under $300. But I guess, it is the touchscreen that makes these machines pricey.
People want something light. This has it. The shitty netbooks are getting heavier and touching 1.4KGs.
Only thing this lacks is a strong branding. Hopefully the big boys come out with light machines too. The Lenovo Skylight will be a big hit at 700g. Half the weight of the shitty 1.4KG netbooks in the market now.
Things like Notion Ink Adam tablet will be a big hit too. I see the fat and heavy netbook facing a slow death.
I am not looking for a tablet running Win7. If I was to get a tablet, it would be alot lower in price and would not require Win7 to browse the internet or to view videos. There are other tablets that are alot lower in price. It would not replace either my notebook or my netbook but supplement them.
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