Dell's Latitude XT tablet goes multi-touch with a free upgrade, offers 128GB SSD for $649

As promised, Dell is offering a free software upgrade for its Latitude XT tablet, unleashing the multi-touch capabilities of its capacitive touch screen at last. The free download allows you to do two finger scrolling, zooming and use programmable double tap functions directly on the screen. Dell's also adding a new 128GB SSD option for $649 to its Precision and Latitude systems, with the XPS and Alienware laptops to follow next week. The Latitude XT software and new SSD drives will be available tomorrow, and Dell promises a brand new Latitude laptop line "in the coming weeks," which we're sure will be taking advantage of Intel's new Centrino 2 chips. Video of multi-touch in action is after the break.

[CarrotAndStick @ Jul 14th 2008 5:39PM]

I hope the new Latitude XT has a better choice in graphics capabilities than the practically useless Intel built-in version...


...a dedicated card couldn't hurt... it's a graphics tablet AND a notebook, after all. No point in keeping its graphics capabilities handicapped.

[tobryan @ Jul 14th 2008 5:56PM]

Unfortunately, the N-Trig device on the XTs are not pressure sensitive like the Wacom penabled devices.

I forgot about this until installed Adobe CS3 on mine and found Photoshop to not recognize pen pressure. :(

[oZ @ Jul 14th 2008 6:03PM]

Explain to me how intel integrated graphics hurts tablet functionality? If you want to game on your laptop, buy a gaming laptop. The X3100 has more than enough power for everything you're going to use a tablet for.

[CarrotAndStick @ Jul 14th 2008 6:18PM]

@oZ


Try running SolidWorks on a tablet with a dedicated graphics card, and on another tablet with the Intel substitute. Get back to me to tell me about the experience.


Tablets are the best things around for solid modelling. It is disappointing when manufacturers limit the graphics options.



By the way, the Lattitude XT uses an ATI chip, but leeches memory off of the system RAM. Don't know how much better it is than the Intel offering, but it is certainly underpowered compared to the dedicated options.



@toryan

Are you sure the pressure sensitivity feature is missing on the Dell? I thought N-Trig screens allowed pressure sensitivity with the stylus. Photoshop CS might have an option to enable it, in its settings page.

[Sarig @ Jul 14th 2008 6:51PM]

The shared memory thing with the ATi chips aren't too bad really. I've got it on my two year old laptop (x1300 I think, not sure, tore the sticker off when I got it). It has 128mb onboard and uses up to 512mb of the system ram. But it's on PCi Express, so it's decent. By no means a gaming card, but I haven't had any trouble gaming on this pc (can play Half Life 2 without problems, for example. And Doom! Not tried Chrysis though ;)

So while they're obviously not as good as a proper graphic card, they do their job well enough.

[Chuckles McGee @ Jul 14th 2008 6:52PM]

@CarrotandStick

My Lenovo X61t runs Solid Works just fine, both on the tablet screen itself and when outputting to a 1680x1024 monitor. Integrated X3100 with 384 MB RAM, 4GB of RAM under Vista. 1.8ghz LV Core2Duo.

[Antimatter @ Jul 14th 2008 8:57PM]

@tobryan

The n-Trig digitizer is pressure sensitive, which is evident in the TIP, although I can't figure out how to get it to work in Photoshop.

[bluemonq @ Jul 15th 2008 12:23AM]

@ Sarig

That's not saying much... I can get Half-Life 2 running pretty smoothly on a tc1100 =D

[MbZ-buGSy @ Jul 15th 2008 3:52AM]

tobryan your wrong. the driver dosent support adobe. if you wanna see it in action download sketchbook pro and see. there will be a future update for adobe products.

[Sarig @ Jul 14th 2008 5:39PM]

Cool! :D I've always thought tablets were a fun concept. Shame I can't buy every gadget in existence, then I'd definately own one!

[Mam00th @ Jul 14th 2008 5:46PM]

Well this comment prove you're not an apple fanboy.

[Sarig @ Jul 14th 2008 5:48PM]

I'm more of a fan of everything gadget related :)

[Hamidxa @ Jul 14th 2008 5:54PM]

Apple have always been behind the times when it comes to technology, perhaps not aesthetics, but certainly technological prowess.

Expect them to try to emulate this in the future, but make it off-white, lack of optical drive, lack of USB ports, lack of card reader slots, lack of well perhaps even the most rudimentary of features, and then watch the Apple fanboys come out from the woodworks praising Apple for their ingenuity.

Then, 5 years down the line, when yet another PC manufacturer releases a revamped version of these tablets, the vacuous sheeple that is the Apple fanboy community will all together flock to the forums to denounce it as a copy, an imitation, all the while oblivious of their own ignorance.

[CraigJ @ Jul 14th 2008 6:32PM]

So, the Apple hate extends into non-Apple related posts? Man, it must suck to go through life with so much negative energy.

[somewhatboxes @ Jul 14th 2008 9:51PM]

I voted CraigJ up because he's absolutely right. If you guys dislike Apple, stop bringing it into every unrelated blog post like it's the only thing you have in life.

This is very cool. I'd like to see people start making specifically multi-touch programs for the notebooks as they become more popular, hopefully this will start a trend of manufacturers including as many cool gadgets as possible for the purpose of being able to upgrade existing units via update patches, etc... to make use of previously useless devices.

[Khris @ Jul 15th 2008 5:45PM]

@Hamidxa

With an attitude like that, how do you ever expect to regain your Apple Fanboy membership card?

[Mam00th @ Jul 14th 2008 5:46PM]

Hurry and release you E-serie already!

[9bit @ Jul 14th 2008 5:52PM]

They can't do that before Montevina, which is supposed to launch this week.

[L @ Jul 14th 2008 6:05PM]

I'm waiting for some official infos regarding the E and E Slim netbooks...hopefully the next announcement will give us some.

Oh, and to have some on-topic stuff here as well: Cool to see the first multitouch laptop, and the quite reasonable SSD prices.

[retro77 @ Jul 14th 2008 5:56PM]

I might just have to order up that HD from my Dell rep to put in my new M4300.

[Joanna Stern @ Jul 14th 2008 5:59PM]

Laptopmag.com has the first hands on with the multi-touch:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/exclusive-hands-on-with-dells-xt-tablet-now-with-multi-touch

[Thomas @ Jul 14th 2008 6:06PM]

Are this the guys that have been rejected from the Apple casting for "PC guy" for beeing way too much over the top?

[jason @ Jul 14th 2008 6:06PM]

what about linux? Dell should support it right?

[huh @ Jul 14th 2008 6:14PM]

is this a core Windows feature or a Dell add-on? Because add-on features tend to not work well with everything, and they sometimes get no support. An example is the middle (scroll) button of my thinkpad, it works great for many apps, but a few don't work as expected and scrolling does not work in many apps at all. At least in this case since Apple controls the hardware, it will work very consistently.

[Jon Doe. @ Jul 14th 2008 6:16PM]

sweet. Its not Apple which means its functional and actually useful beyond looking pretty. Nice!

[deyanimay @ Jul 14th 2008 6:35PM]

I still like pretty things. =)

[phanbouy @ Jul 14th 2008 6:35PM]

so how much of a fanatic do you have to be to think that any gadget NOT made by a certain company is automatically useful?

[your mom @ Jul 14th 2008 6:39PM]

um....exactly what constitutes functional and useful to you, smart guy? my macbook seems to be able to allow me to do everything my job requires - which *gasp* isn't design! - such as create spreadsheets and write an email too! man, how crazy right?

so please, explain functional to me as i'd love to know exactly what 'benefits' you get from dell that you don't from apple besides a different os?

thanks, i'll wait. go, quickly run to the boards to find some myth to work with!

douchebag.

[Paul Dullford @ Jul 14th 2008 6:36PM]

Great. A Dell Tablet PC with SSD.
Point 1: I have a non-Tablet PC Dell. It fell apart after a single year of use, though it did get repaired after much quarrelling with Dell support. Our house also has a 1998 VAIO which works just fine.
Point 2: I have a non-Dell Tablet PC. Except for artists and on-the-go people, there is not much use. Oh, and for children. And for Portal gamers who could use an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Stylus, except most of these Tablet PC's don't have a half-decent GPU.
Mid-conclusion: Dell Tablet PC's would come apart uselessly.
Point 3: What I like is the price. Nice specs for a Tablet PC, and it goes for just $649. Oh... that's just the price of the hard drive? For $649 I could buy an iPhone 3G with no commitment and something that costs $50 that I can't think up right now!
Conclusion: I'm skipping the XT for now. Wake me up when the thing goes for $649 *with* the SSD drive. You'll probably need to come to a cryogenic facility.

[PeterF @ Jul 14th 2008 7:05PM]

Man shut up Dell things hold together fine. $650 for a 128GB SDD (FLASH IDIOT) is a DAMN good price, thats about how much Apple charges for the 64GB.
Who would buy an iPhone instead of a tablet PC? They do totally different things. iPhones cant edit word documents or even save them. Just view. So STFU Apple fanboy!

[Paul Dullford @ Jul 16th 2008 7:19AM]

Peter: I'm actually one of the few people in my entire school that criticised the iPhone in over a hundred different ways. So you could call me an iPhone basher instead. I do like Macs, but not fanatically. In fact, the only product I ever bought from Apple is a first-gen iPod nano.
Now, you say 64GB is a great price. Dell always offers nice conveniences for lower prices and they always end up being highly inconvenient. The Inspiron E1705 I have did not have Stereo Mix support until quite recently. Dell is incredibly restrictive in its product support, which is why I had to fight to get a battery replaced that I requested to be replaced before the limited warranty expired.
Besides, currently any SSD is unreasonably priced for me. For $649, I can buy four 500GB hard drives, which totals to 2TB. Sure, SSD is lightning fast (or that's what people say), but hard drives should work almost as well with regular maintenance.

[StalkerZERO @ Jul 14th 2008 7:06PM]

Damnit! I'm getting sick and tired of the ridiculous careless azz reporting and the spreading of said careless reporting by multiple tech blogs.
All these other companies are using some form of touch based computing technology....BUT NOT MULTI-TOUCH!
Apple bought fingerworks and then that was that. Only Apple now owns the patent on the technology known as "multi-touch".

[Antimatter @ Jul 14th 2008 8:52PM]

Um... I'm not sure where you're getting your information but Apple holds no patents granting them exclusive use of multitouch gesture-based interfaces. In fact, multitouch and similar multimodal interfaces have been in use since the 1980s. Fingerworks had no exlusive rights to multitouch and as such has not transferred these no-existant rights to Apple.

This laptop uses a capacitive touch digitizer manufactured by an Israeli company called N-Trig, who do own patents for their integration of capacitive touch sensors and an active digitizer in a self-contained unit.

[Steve A. @ Jul 14th 2008 7:23PM]

I'll have to try this out tomorrow when it drops. I've found the Dell XT to be an excellent tablet overall and multitouch capibilities will only add to it. Since we started using tablet PC's some 5 years ago, we've had some pretty large increases in productivity and reductions in project time. I figure our switch to tablets for our on-site inspectors have easily added several hundred thousand dollars to our bottom line annually.

Here's an older case study on how we use Tablets (MS test bed)
http://download.microsoft.com/documents/customerevidence/6814_Johnson_Braud_OneNote_Case_Study.doc

When the Dell XT2 arrives this fall, I'll order a couple the same day. The XT works well, but the lack on the onboard disk drive is troublesome.

[qaz @ Jul 15th 2008 6:39AM]

weak presentation
good to see though that something more is done in this direction

[Rick @ Jul 15th 2008 10:55AM]

There is no 128 GB SSD drive listed as a choice for the XT Tablet today, 7/15/08, as of 11AM EST.

[misu @ Jul 15th 2008 1:31PM]

is it out yet, link anyone?

[Californian @ Jul 20th 2008 11:21AM]

Sager already beat the slowpokes at Dell. Their NP9262 already has the option, and I own a Sager, so I trust them more. Plus, I don't much care for Alienware (read: I hate them), but Dell's alright.