MSI WindPad 100 is a 10-inch, Intel Atom-powered Windows 7 tablet
By Joanna Stern 
posted May 31st 2010 12:24AM
posted May 31st 2010 12:24AM
The 10-inch tablet is made entirely of plastic -- it does feel quite cheap, but on the other hand it's incredibly light (it's only 1.7 pounds). The prototype they had out didn't have any of the final ports, but eventually it will have an HDMI jack that should be able to output 720p video to an HDTV. Our biggest concern about the tablet comes with the speed. We noticed it taking a few seconds for applications to launch, and the Wind Touch UI was incredibly sluggish. Speaking of the interface, it's just a basic skin on top of Windows and should provide easy access to applications. The 1024x600-resolution capacitive display did seem responsive, though we would have rather it had a higher resolution.
800g????
daymmmm. cant wait to see the price n battery life on this thing!
@dark star
That is only 70 grams heavier than the 3G iPad, and it comes with Windows 7, has many ports (HDMI, USB, etc), and uses Intel CPU. Battery life will suffer ... horribly, but otherwise sounds like a good tablet/slate.
@futurerheza
forget android & googles blocking of the app store. This runs a full os you can emulate android as well as run your reg programs - office etc
@Xing
But you wont have the performance nor battery life of a ARM+Android combo.
@Xing Android is based on Linux, you know the one that run servers and desktops.
@kapanak
8 hour battery? (5 hour effective?) now only a stylus
This computex is going to be great...
@dark star my assumption is that the battery will last max 2.5h in web-surfing mode .. just as every other companies tablet...
@dark star Not the super tablet that we're expecting although one thing that I like about MSI is the price of its products is always cheap. On the other hand, I'm still waiting for that chrome tablet. http://j.mp/google-chrome-verizon-tablet
@Xing
"Emulate android"...
Yeah I take it you haven't used the android SDK emulator on a windows device.
Performance of emulating android on a fast core2duo machine with gigs of RAM is orders of magnitude worse than using a bottom of the range circa 500MHz ARM setup with 120Mb RAM.
I'm guessing emulating it on something like a netbook won't fly.
@fubarweb
Android can run on X86 natively. You do not need to emulate it unless you're testing ARM code!
:D
@Joseph9307
Does anyone know where the video is?
Looks like the HP Slate from the pic.
@furquanatique They all look the same to me, as they should, mostly screen with a little bit of bezel. I guess the bezels will be black or silver for the most part. I've always been in favor of more hardware buttons than the one Apple has. I mean on the iPad, they could have a whole row of buttons in the space they only use one that would provide additional usability.
800 grams? That's slightly under 2 lbs. Wow, roll the video tape. I got to see this tablet in action.
@TechBlogger
When I read your post, I figured it was closer to 2 lbs but its closer to one and three quarters of a pound. I had to look it up...
800 g = 1.76369809747902 lbs
= 28.2191695596643 oz
Battery life is key to this product's success - price, not so much. People will pay stupid prices for this but if it only lasts 2 hours, I think it's applications are limited.
@Chaosdivine
Windows 7 is limited for applications?
@balthazar
No, that's not what I meant (symatically anyhow). I meant, applications refers to "use of product in the real world" not programs as applications. I didn't see the link for the claimed 8 hour battery life until someone pointed it out down below. I initially figured it would be like 2-3 hour life and I thought the uses of this product would be limited as a result.
Disclaimer: The Windpad may give you gas.
This and the ExoPC are a pair of interesting slates, both with interesting interfaces, thought I think the latter's is better.
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.163.com%2Fdigi%2F10%2F0531%2F11%2F680SDCJT001618J1.html&sl=auto&tl=en
MSI went cheap intel and bulky windows7??? Nooooo the dream became a nightmare.
It was supost to be tegra2
There is nothing cheap about Intel and Windows...troll. You know what's cheap? ARM and Android...heck, still not as cheap as your comment. -1
i have a feeling there's gonna be a lot of Win 7 tablets released. The ExoPC looked sexy.. now this is just as awesome with the hotkeys... what to choose what to choose...
@xxhonkeyxx And nobody will buy them as they can already buy a Windows 7 netbook for cheaper.
@pika2000
People will buy them unless there is a way to separate the keyboard from the netbook and that netbook can still be used.
Can someone give me less bezel geez!?!?
Errr, Windows 7? This won't go far in the consumer market. Consumers don't want to wait for their appliance to boot up. Smartphone OS is the way to go, as they are designed to be instant-on. If I have to wait to boot this thing up, might as well use my laptop/desktop.
@pika2000 why wouldnt it go over well in the consumer market? They already know and love windows 7 so i feel like the consumer market would love this...
@pika2000 My thoughts exactly. This thing is going to get horrid battery life, being an actual desktop OS. Plus Win7 sucks on a touch interface.
@SteveyAyo Tablet PCs using Windows are not new. They have been on the market for years. Guess how good they have done so far. Not so. Really, people like Windows on their computers, laptops, but not on this. Look at smartphones, do you want to wait for your smartphone to boot-up everytime you want to make a call/check email? No.
@jf79 8Hours douche
@pika2000 yeah but there hadnt been a market for tablets until apple made them trendy, it definitely wasnt because they werent well made, average consumers buy things they trust and when it comes to an OS Windows is still king, they dont know about tech like most people here do
@SteveyAyo "they dont know about tech like most people here do"
Which is why shoehorning Windows won't work.
1. It takes time to boot up. This is biggest problem. What is this "slates" device marketed as? Something to check email/browse the web? Well, if I have to wait for it to boot up, might as well use my laptop/desktop. This is not a good user experience. Putting it on standby? That drains battery. Hibernation? Still takes a long time to "boot up."
2. This is Windows, running on a netbook-class hardware. You still have to do security updates and anti-virus. This does not work for the lay people. They already have to deal with that on their desktops/laptops, and then this? Might as well skip it and use the laptop.
3. Price. With the same hardware, a regular Windows 7 netbook would probably be cheaper and more usable for most people (keyboard + trackpad). Since the user experience will be the same/worse, people would pick a netbook instead.
In short, this doesn't offer any advantage over a netbook and it potentially offer worse experience.
@pika2000
Guess how heavy and expensive those old tablets are?
@pika2000
Yeah, Windows tablets not catching on in the consumer space has nothing to do with the fact that the average price was $2000.
Nope, nothing at all.
@pika2000
I don't understand why everyone is crying about boot times and then uses iProducts as an example, hell the ExoPC only takes 40seconds to turn on, when I turn my iPhone on it feels like an eternity of watching that stupid apple logo while you wait, it might be less time than win7 on a tablet, but I have stronger expectations for a phone to be instant on than a tablet which the iPhone isn't.
@Sicarius123
40 seconds? Same thing as a regular desktop/laptop, which is my point. If a user has to wait that long, might as well use a netbook, which is cheaper to boot.
If you constantly rebooting your iPhone, then you're doing it wrong.
@pika2000
My NC-10 wakes up in about 3 seconds, and uses about 1% battery life/hour in that state.
If you're constantly shutting down your computer instead of putting it to sleep, you're doing it wrong.
@pika2000
I want to try my hand at your logic.
Underpowered $2000 tablets fail -> underpowered $500 tablets fail.
Now, lets look at actual history.
Small underpowered $2000 notebooks fail (and they have) -> small underpowered $500 notebooks fail. (doh!)
@pika2000 i think you also missed the fact that this thing has an ssd in it which means windows 7 will NOT take very long to boot, windows 7 was built with ssd in mind. I would much prefer this to have windows 7 than anything else
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-solid-state-drives-ssd,7717.html
Why more windows tablets???
@Alexpeegs Well, when you lack a vision, you just keep rehashing past ideas again and again without thinking out of the box.
@pika2000
When you lack perspective, you just keep talking out of your ass.
@jon
hahaha...pwned
I want to wait and see what Intel will introduce, when they said they will target dual-core atoms at ultra thin tablets. I have a feeling with a less bulky Atom setup and sufficient amount of storage and RAM, a lot of Win7 tablets will become much more attractive, no matter how much people complain about the interface.
Now if only someone got a Wacom digitizer to work on a capacitive screen of a tablet.
PS: HP has Wacom digitizer on their tablets, right?
@kapanak
Agreed completely about wacom compatibility. I only need 512 levels of pressure sensitivity and I'd pay $500 yesterday. And yes, HP has tablets already that have wacom support and you can get one well equipped for $900 that are easily fast enough to paint a 10x10 inch 300dpi image in photoshop. Check out the HP tm2. Though really, I would love to have a wacom based slate!
@kapanak
Wacom pen digitizers sit behind the screen, and they register contact because a sensor in the pen tip is being depressed and then communicated to the system over an electro-magnetic resonance field (which also happens to power the pen).
Resistive and capacitive digitizers, on the other hand, sit in front of the screen and are a separate implementation. Long story short, the two can coexist, making for an ideal pen + finger-touch interface. (How else would the Courier concept work?)
However, it's only recently that Wacom has provided a pen + capacitive multi-touch solution for Tablet PC makers (the Dell Latitude XT/XT2 and HP tx2 are N-Trig-based, and N-Trig has some infamous driver issues), and the HP tm2 is one of the first to use the new setup.
Back to the subject at hand: if this Win7 tablet doesn't have Wacom pen support, I'm not interested. Not when used HP TC1100s with BOE Hydis screens and Wacom pens as standard throughout the line can be had for US$200.
Lemme guess...3 hour battery? Perhaps 5 hour?
@BubbaJ
Hmm...source says 8. Getting closer, but I also wonder how honest they are about that.
@BubbaJ No, 8 hours, hit the link
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.163.com%2Fdigi%2F10%2F0531%