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Toshiba unveils Windows 8 concept devices, details stay hidden
If you're looking for pricing, specs, availability and all that good stuff, then you've come to the wrong place. What we have here is a gallery of photos revealing Toshiba's various concepts of what Windows 8 devices ought to look like. There's a Transformer-style tablet with detachable keyboard dock -- a form factor we're seeing plenty of at Computex right now. There's also a slider PC that looks rather like the MSI Slider S20 we played with earlier. Finally, perhaps the most conservative of the bunch is a clamshell laptop design with a touchscreen. So yes, as concepts go none of these are especially pioneering -- but at least Toshiba will know it can't dally in bringing its ideas to market and hitting a competitive price point. Dana Wollman contributed to this report.
China clones the sliding netvertible tablet PC
We'd forgive you for thinking you're looking at a smartphone in the picture above -- seeing how HTC and Nokia owners have enjoyed this form factor for years -- but that's actually a netbook up there, sporting a full five-row keyboard and a desktop operating system. Yes, what took Samsung and ASUS until CES 2011 to realize has been copied by Shenzhen in two months flat, and even if you'd thumb your nose at its vanilla configuration (10-inch 1024 x 600 screen, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N455 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 3700mAh lithium-ion battery) and optical touchpad next to the display, it's hard for a lover of all things gadgety not to appreciate that. Besides, the 1,600 yuan (about $244) price tag doesn't hurt any.
Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hands-on preview (video)
If you're an avid Engadget reader, you're familiar with a dream of ours -- we have always wanted a netbook / tablet hybrid (netverible as we like to call 'em) that actually works really well. We don't want to get our hopes up too much, but the Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series could be it. While we got a chance to see the 10.1-inch tablet with its slide out keyboard just a few days ago, we caught some one-on-one time with the device behind closed doors here at the show and came out having a lot of hope in the product. The unit we saw, and the one being shown on the show floor here at CES, is still pre-production, but even so the sliding mechanism worked pretty smoothly. That's not to say it doesn't still feel delicate, but it actually auto-slides open once you start to push up the screen. As you'll see in the video, it's a rather exhilarating process, although, we were slightly worried that the back of the screen was going to shave off a keyboard key or two. Speaking of the keyboard, those smooth, shiny chiclet keys feel pretty good, though as you'd expect the layout is a little bit cramped. When held in tablet mode the 2.18-pound device is a little heavy for one-handed use, but it's nowhere near as thick or bulky as the Dell Inspiron Duo. However, to maintain those trim dimensions, Samsung has had to cut out a full sized USB port, and instead, the device will use its mini-HDMI port -- it will come with a mini-HDMI-to-USB 2.0 adapter. It also has a MicroSD slot and 3G-card insert, and both front- and back-facing cameras. We didn't get to spend too much with Samsung's Touch Launcher, but it's one of the nicer looking Windows 7 layers we've seen in our day, and it can be launched by just touching that bright blue strip on the screen bezel. Of course, we're slightly worried that it will be sluggish, but Samsung is using Intel's forthcoming 1.5GHz Oak Trail processor, which we've heard will speed up Win 7 and improve battery life. As for the 340-nit, 1366 x 768-resolution screen itself, it was nice and bright on maximum setting, and the viewing angles seemed to be fairly decent. Unfortunately, it's also fairly glossy, so we'll have to see how it holds up outdoors. It also supports up to 16 points of contact -- we're not sure how useful that is on a ten-inch screen, but it's a nice bragging point. Samsung maintains the Sliding PC 7 Series should be hitting for $699 in May -- don't let us down Sammy, we've got dreams. %Gallery-113203%%Gallery-113045% Sam Sheffer and Sean Hollister contributed to this report. Updated: The price is said to be $699, not $599. We've heard different things on the release time frame so we're sticking to May at the moment.
Samsung 9 Series and Sliding PC 7 Series quick hands-on (video)
It's been a crazy day, but we hope you didn't miss Samsung's Sliding PC 7 Series. The little laptop / tablet hybrid does just what the name suggests, with the display literally sliding over the keyboard. Of course, we had to get video of it in action, which you can enjoy after the break. Some pictures are below, too, both of the 7 Series and ultra-thin 9 Series. Needless to say, we're going back for seconds. %Gallery-112893%
