If Windows RT is a failure, Dell apparently didn’t get the memo. PC World reports that Dell plans to release several new tablets later this year, including models running Windows 8 and Windows RT.

The tablets are expected to have 10 inch or larger displays and will be follow-ups to the company’s current XPS 10 Windows RT tablet and Latitude 10 Windows 8 tablet.

Dell XPS 10 tablet

The Latitude 10 has an Intel Atom Clover Trail processor and is aimed at professional customers looking for devices with Windows 8 Pro and security features ranging from a fingerprint reader to SmartCard and TPM support.

Meanwhile the XPS 10 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and runs Windows RT which is a stripped-down version of Windows 8 without support for legacy Windows apps.

It’s likely that next-gen tablets could have more powerful chips such as Intel’s next-generation Core chips, code-named Haswell. They’re expected to offer significantly more performance than an Atom chip without consuming much more power.

Next-generation ARM-based chips from Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Samsung, and others will also offer significantly improved performance… but that’s not necessarily enough to overcome some of the limitations of Windows RT such as the relatively small number of third party apps available for the platform.

Still, if Dell’s not giving up on Windows RT yet, either the company knows something the rest of us don’t… or has already invested too much in the platform to give up without a fight.

If there’s a large enough price difference between Windows RT and Windows 8 tablets later this year, the platform might actually stand a chance. Right now Windows RT devices tend to be significantly more expensive than Android tablets with similar hardware. But if we start to see $200 and $300 Windows RT tablets, they might present a low-cost alternative to Windows 8 models that cost $500 and more.

I’m not sure that’ll happen though — right now one of the key selling points is that it comes with Microsoft Office Home & Student pre-installed. So not only are device makers like Dell paying Microsoft a licensing fee for Windows, but they’re also presumably paying for Office. That could make it hard to offer this type of hardware at Android tablet-like prices.

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8 replies on “Dell plans to launch new Windows 8, Windows RT tablets this year”

  1. If it’s 10″ then I hope for Haswell chips.

    I wished they would put out a 5″-7″ Windows 8 tablet with Clover Trail. I’ve used their Latitude 10 and performs well for most consumer tasks and you can still run any required desktop app when need arises. Maybe when Bay Trail comes out.

  2. I wonder if these are products that were far enough “into the pipe” that the losses from canceling them are large enough to make it worth betting that they may sell?

  3. >If Windows RT was a failure, Dell apparently didn’t get the memo.

    It got the memo alright, along with a $2 billion cash gift from MS, Ditto Nokia, which gets $1 billion/yr.

    1. Yeah, this seems pretty likely.

      MS tries to buy success for its crappy products but it seems like they cannot throw enough money at it (at least seeing the almost nonexistent marketshare of WP and Nokia)

    2. If Michael Dell really is letting Microsoft drive the wheel then Michael wasted his fortune making the company go private again. According to him, the whole point of going private was to choose a plan and go with it without having investors in the way. If his plan is to let Microsoft dictate everything then he’s definitely making a mistake.

      Also, it could just be what Arrdee says. Like with Google and Motorola, Dell could just be flushing out the products that were in the pipeline since cancelling them all together may cost more money.

      1. >If…then Michael wasted his fortune making the company go private again

        M. Dell was never a tech visionary, and it’s a bad time to expect him to be one. Dell the co succeeded on basis of its direct sales strategy, not because innovation is or was ever its (his) forte.

        Vision or no, $2 bil can buy a lot of friends, especially when said friend is in financial straits, as Nokia was, and as Dell is with its present corporate manueverings.

        >Dell could just be flushing out the products that were in the pipeline since cancelling them all together may cost more money.

        Apparently you’ve never heard of the just-in-time (JIT) production concept, which Dell was an early adopter of. That’s what enabled its direct-sales success, when others were still struggling with lags from their production pipeline.

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