Korean electronics maker LG’s latest tablet has an 11.6 inch display, Windows 8 software, and a slide-out keyboard that lets you use the computer like a notebook.
It’s called the LG Tab-Book H160, and while LG plans to show it off at CES in January, you can already have one shipped from South Korea to the US… if you’ve got $1395 burning a hole in your pocket.
The Tab-Book H160 measures 0.6 inches thick, weighs about 2.3 pounds, and offers up to 12.5 hours of battery life.
It features WiFi, Bluetooth, a USB port, HDMI port, and a microSD card slot.
The Tab-Book H160 has an Intel Atom Z2760 Clover Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 64GB solid state disk… which suggest the only reason for the high price tag right now is because the tablet’s not widely available in the US. That’s the cost of importing goods from overseas.
LG will also offer a higher-priced model with an Intel Core i5 processor (and presumably lower battery life). That model is called the Tab-Book Z160.
These aren’t the first slider-style PC we’ve seen. The MSI S20 has a similar design, as does the Asus Eee Pad Slider — although that model runs Google Android rather than Windows 8.
While the design combines some of the advantages of a slate PC and a model with a hardware keyboard, there are also some down sides. The Tab-Book will be heavier than many tablets, the screen is always locked into one position when the keyboard is accessible, and there’s no touchpad on the keyboard.
via MiniMachines.net
Still not sure what to think of these, especially with the price
Is this form factor actually going somewhere? More and more of these slider things are popping up. I thought this was just a novelty. It seems to have all the disadvantages of not being a real notebook, while having none of the advantages of a docking tablet like the Transformer.
I prefer a slider design than a dockable one. So that’s one person right there. I like the quick switching between notebook and tablet mode. I like the keyboard to be available at all times. It’s more cumbersome to take a docked tablet out of a bag when you just want to use the tablet especially when you’re on the go (ie. standing).
It’s unfortunate that these sliders usually only have one screen angle and no trackpad/trackpoint. The Vaio Duo has an optical trackpoint but that’s as useful as not having one. Plus, 11.6″ inches is too big for tablet use for me anyway.
I prefer the traditional twisting screen than a dockable one too.
The thing is sexy looking, I’ll give it that.
If you’re going to solder the ram to the board please put in 16gb or im not going to buy your crippled product.
I wonder why these sliders don’t have a trackpoint and an adjustable screen angle. Can they really not fit those features in?
Anyway, it’s probably still a year before I can buy or a Core i based slider with a 10.1″ screen. That’s my personal limit for tablet usage.
At least the Tab-Book seems like it has a smaller bezel compared to the other hybrid 11.6″ notebooks. Maybe as small as regular 11.6″ notebooks without touch.