8.9-inch ExoPC Slate has iPad looks, netbook internals, Windows 7 soul
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 31st 2010 10:33AM
posted January 31st 2010 10:33AM
[Thanks, Jean-Baptiste]
posted January 31st 2010 10:33AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
@LAY I want to see that split keyboard from the Q1 Ultra. I really liked the design of that.
@wigby The massive advertising campaigns Apple did for both iPod, and iPhone certainly accounted for many sales. In addition to extensive subway, kiosks and general advertising (about 100 to 1 vs. competition), the iPod was the only music player advertised on network TV during the iPod golden era. The only thing the silhouette ads sold was "being cool", never mentioned features, or UI, just "bing cool, and hip". Apple continued the successful ad blitz with the iPhone. Until recently, I must have seen 12+ iPhone ads per week on prime time network TV vs. maybe 2 ads for the competition, and they were more often than not advertising the carrier, not a particular device. Now, the competition is finally getting it, and have increased their network TV ads.
When the non-tech consumer decided it was time for a music player, or better phone, the Apple brand was embedded in their mind from the massive advertising, and it worked, the consumer purchased an iPod, or iPhone. I am not saying all sales were due to the extensive advertising, but it certainly paid dividends with many consumer sales to users who did not even consider another brand because they equated Apple with music players / better phones due to the massive advertising. Very successful business move on Apple's part.
@grahamj Every version of Windows I can remember has a WYSIWYG screen properties setting which allows you to increase the size of all UI elements to a size comfortable for your finger size. I have used XP, Vista, and Win 7 tablets / convertibles, and in all cases, I was able to increase the size of all UI element to a finger-friendly, easy to use, size for my large fingers. Some of the devices I used had multi-touch, and some just touch. I am not a fan of multi-touch on anything smaller than Microsoft's Surface. However the multi-touch worked fine, and pinch zoom in a Vista based convertible worked fine in Google's Chrome, IE, and the photo apps, I do not believe the double click zoom was supported, but with the larger screen size, it was not needed.
@maati
Please list the "MANY, MANY" any tables as thin as the iPad, with as nice a screen, multitouch and 10 hour battery life.
Yes it does not do everything a laptop does, but it will be a nice ebook reading, web browsing, emailing, music listening, casual game playing while sitting on the couch tablet. And that actually what I (and probably more people than you realize) want.
@grahamj Right click is actually pretty intuative with Windows touch implimentation. Just tap and hold for a second and the right click context menu pops up. You can even adjust for how long you have to hold for the right click menu to pop up.
@RandomGuy No point any person who was genuinly intrested would have Googled how windows 7 works with a touch interface
@grahamj
Technically any browser in Windows 7 is multitouch, since multitouch is built in to Windows 7. There are pinch, pan, and double tap to zoom gestures available, as well as flicks you can customize to do whatever you want. Sure it might not scroll like the iPad, but at least you can watch Hulu and netflix, or play any flash game you want. I'd take the full internet experience over a super scrolling experience.
@maati Um. It's the software stupid.
Hmm... Not sure why engadget feels that the performance will not be snappy 'cause of Win 7. So far I am loving my Win 7 upgrade. That too on a measibly laptop and Win 7 has performed admirably.
As for the tablet I would love to see if it has a skinned UI or a regular Win 7 desktop feel.
@nitinmehra20 It's not so much the Win 7 as the Atom. My mom complained about the Athlon XP 1800+, so I don't dare tell her to get a netbook with Atom.
@nitinmehra20 My netbook has near the same specs (obviously, even though I had to upgrade to 2Gb of RAM) and runs Windows 7 just fine. It even multitasks!
@nitinmehra20
don't you get it yet?
apple is sleek and fast, everything else is shoddy and slow.
@nitinmehra20 It's because of the touch screen. Not anything else. Your experience with Win7 on non-touch screen devices is not relevant.
Personally, I'd buy something as "crippled" as iPad if it were significantly cheaper. The form reminds me of complaints that all new cars resemble silver eggs. There's just not a lot you can do with the touchscreen form factor. Did anyone expect it to be circular?
@cristobaldelicia
So are you saying that the non snappiness of the tablet's multi touch support is due to HW as opposed to SW?
@jincongz
Im running Win7 on my Advent 4213 netbook which has the same CPU as this, and in my usage it runs more than admerable.
It even runs well with full Aero enabled.
Admitedly, some apps do take a few seconds to startup, but once they do they run very smoothly, it also manages 1080p videos fine (the screen is just short of 720 though :-( ). I use it alot for graphic editing and 3d modeling for uni and have no probs.
So, point is, I dont think the fact that either, Windows 7, or the Atom prosseccer is going to cause anyone many problems.
This looks like a nice device to me, unfortunatlky the screen is just an inch short for my liking, but will be a very good alternative than an iPad.
@nitinmehra20 The snappiness or lack of snappiness often has nothing to do with the CPU and a lot more to do with slow laptop hard drives...if the SSD in this has a good controller then it will feel plenty snappy even with only an Atom.
@cristobaldelicia
"Your experience with Win7 on non-touch screen devices is not relevant."
Well let me give you my experience with touch screen Windows 7. I use a Latitude XT, with 1.2 GHz ULV core 2 Duo, 3 GB RAM, and a 64 GB SSD. It runs Windows 7 perfectly.
I use it to conduct my research in statistical physics. I write and run simulations on it, analyze data in excel, take notes, read texbooks, mark up papers, run photoshop.... pretty much do everything the iPad can't.
As for performance, I don't get anywhere near 10 hours of battery life, but I get my work done.
The windows 7 interface never slowed me down using pen or touch.
" looks a lot like another, recently announced 9.7-inch multitouch tablet"
Presumably they mean HP's slate?
@jakem
I was just going to say, with its smaller bezel and wide screen display, it looks more like the HP Slate than the iPad. Engadget should change the title.
@Missing Matter
Or it looks like nearly any other earlier tablet release, like MSI 10", or ASUS DR-570, or DigitalRise X9, or Lenovo IdeaPad U1... to name a few but the but ugly one.
This is a rerun of how any chicklet laptop is compared in the looks to apple laptops, when the original look comes from Sony. All apple laptops have taken their looks from Sony.
@jakem look, it is touch screen and a tablet, that is totally rip off iPad
/s
@newone Ah no. The first notebooks with a recessed keyboard and integrated pointing device in front of the keyboard was the Apple PowerBook 100 released in 1991. It was manufactured by Sony, but the design was Apple's and it was an Apple product.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/18/archos-9-tablet-and-its-windows-7-starter-edition-unboxed-video/
archos 9 is like that too, also with $500 price tag, way before ipad annoucement
@htd
Except this isn't running Win 7 Starter, so the touch features should actually work.
@htd
Archos 9 is a dud. Would have worked much better had they kept the Z520 processor rather than optioning the less powerful (and less expensive I'm sure) Z510. Couple that with a HDD and the systems limited amount of RAM and the performance goes down the crapper. Also, W7 starter is shit.
@infinitii The Archos 9 is not the dud you claim in your comments. After using the built-in screen properties feature that increases the UI element sizes, the Archos 9 works fine. It is not going to play the latest PC games, and I am not going to edit my next movie on it. However, it is an excellent couch surfer, media viewer, and the touchscreen works fine. It is not multi-touch since it is Windows Starter, but since I am not a fan of multi-touch on devices < Microsoft Surface, that is fine for me. The soft keyboard is big enough for my large fingers, and my favorite Windows desktop apps. work fine as well.
I caught up on the iPad news the other day using the Archos 9. When I went to the NYTimes home page, it looked as nice as the iPad demo. Wait a minute - something was different. I know what it was, the Flash video highlighting the iPad intro was playing fine on the Archos 9 while downloading my email in the background.
"Yes, we realize that it's hard to provide too much visual differentiation between tablet PCs with large, ebony bezels, but we can't help but think that this 8.9-inch multitouch tablet looks a lot like another, recently announced 9.7-inch multitouch tablet."
The HP Slate PC?
Gee, you would think that the whole "Hey let's pretend all tablets are all just iP*d clones so we can insinuate that they are all ripping off Apple" meme would have waited until sometime in the future so it would actually have made some plausible sense.
@LAY so true
@LAY so true
Engadget is not a blog, it's a f*cking Apple ad.
@LAY
amen brother..
and uh... lets not forget that you can actually buy one of these things right NOW (well apparently you can if you speak french that is.... which i dont... but someone done and they could buy one now!)
"and while we're not thinking this will deliver the sort of snappy performance seen on the iPad, it will certainly be a lot more functional."
The iPad should not get credit for "snappy performance" when it's running a phone OS and it can't multitask.
@darkNiGHTS
hey, this would be SNAPPY too.... if you limit it to 1 program at once with no flash support.
heck, I believe my 7 year old desktop would as well.
an asian engineer went to Microsoft...he then died...
I'd buy it if it had Ion,
@hvakrg Show me a Slate Atom PC without Ion, and I'll show you a slate PC I don't want.
@Dalhectar
Well I want to play my movies on the tablet without having to spend hours compressing them, and the Atom can't handle that.
I agree with that idea, but if this had an ION in it, you still wouldn't want it because the battery life would probably get cut in half. It's all a delicate balance with these devices. The fact is, most of us want to surf the web at home and watch HD movies on airplane flights or long car rides. For this the N270 Atom falls just short, but the ION is overkill. I think the Broadcom accelerator is what I want. The first tablet that has the ability to playback HD video for 5 hours for under $500 will have my business.
Now, if you're thinking of gaming (high end PC gaming) on a tablet, and you still want long battery life, that's probably not gonna happen for another year or two.
@ValkyrieMT
Yeah, that is a good point, and I actually wanted to go back and add, "or the Broadcom chip", but there is no edit-button.
What annoys me is that a Tegra2 chip probably can play back 1080p material, but Windows can't run on that chip, and I need Windows to run Mediaportal.
Interesting. Saves me the trouble of modding my own netbook (with these exact specs) into a slate.
Then again: my mod would have given me a much cooler looking hardwood case. Much more comfortable when holding it for an extended period of time.
@fatbencher Of course it should get credit for snappy performance, it's not a fully fledged PC so why give it an OS that'll slow it down and contain an endless list of memory hogging features that'll never be used! Win 7 is great for PC's where a lot of flexibility and power is need but not ideal for something like this, the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind!
...Sorry, that reply should have been for darkNiGHTS
@ukSamo
No problem. Actually I agree with his assertion, so your comment isn't really misdirected. It's... as if you KNEW!
*que sinister music*
This has probably been in design studio for months, but let's just say it copied Apple eh? My no Apple filter isn't working Josh!
@dzeRnumbrd
Yeah, I wonder how many tablets already released and soon to be released are going to be compared to the iPad when they've been in the works since way before the iPad was announced to the public.
@dzeRnumbrd
My Ass. The iPhone came out in 2007, that's where the design came from.
@wess
how the hell else can someone design a rectangle?
rectangles have been around for millenia, would you prefer that everyone else starts using circles and kites for their designs as to not offend apple?
@dzeRnumbrd
They're *ALL* ripping off friggin' Pythagoras! Fibonacci should be spinning in his grave! Can no one make anything original!
@BrianH
Whoever invented the rectangle would be getting mad royalty right now..
@dzeRnumbrd
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt
This is a link to a story about how Steve Jobs invented the rounded rectangle by... looking a a bunch of rounded rectangles other people had made.
This looks right, no?