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MSI's Windows 7-based WindPad 100W now on sale for $710
MSI's first entry into the wild, wonderful, and oftentimes wishy-washy world of tablets is now on sale, but frankly, we aren't too sure we'd be jumping to hand over our $710 -- er, $709.95 -- for the WindPad 100W. The retailer is Simply Electronics, which just so happens to rank a few rungs below Amazon in terms of heardability-ness. At any rate, those willing to take a flying leap of faith should expect a 10.1-inch device loaded up with Windows 7 Starter, Intel's Atom Z530 1.6GHz single-core processor, 2GB of memory a 32GB SSD and a battery that'll keep things humming for around six hours. Here's hoping it'll perform better than that first wave of Win7 tablets, and you know, that you actually receive one.
MSI WindPad 100W and 100A tablets hit CES 2011, we go hands-on
The more things change, the more they stay the same at MSI, as the company's two tablets -- due to ship within three months -- still feel like early prototypes. MSI showed off both its Windows 7 and Android 10-inch slates at CES 2011, now known as the WindPad 100W and WindPad 100A, and both sport last-gen tablet specs. Despite pitching the Windows device as an Oak Trail device, the WindPad 100W's still got a 1.66GHz Atom Menlow Z530 CPU here, and Windows 7 is seriously laggy and unresponsive despite the presence of a 32GB SSD and 2GB of RAM. Though it have the promised HDMI port, it's basically the same device we saw in May of last year. Meanwhile, the WindPad 100A (nee WindPad 110) has indeed had a redesign, but possibly for the worse -- it presently only has a single physical key pulling double-duty as Back and Power, and MSI's no longer listing Tegra 2, just a ARM Cortex A8 chip from an undisclosed vendor. It's actually got a fairly useful custom skin on top to display icons at proper tablet resolution and quickly swap between multimedia, the full Android Market, and a full 1GB of RAM, but the device wasn't anything special otherwise. If you ask us, an Android 2.2 tablet with these specs is going to be a hard sell in a post-CES 2011 world. Still, it's always possible MSI could pull things together at the last minute and surprise us. PR after the break. %Gallery-113329%
MSI to reintroduce WindPad tablets at CES, claims Oak Trail improves performance and battery life
You'll remember that back at Computex MSI introduced two tablets or so-called WinPads -- there was the Windows 7 / Atom slate and another one of the Android / ARM variety. Well, MSI is planning to resurrect those with some slight improvements for CES, and this time it's gearing up to actually release them both. First up is the 10.1-inch Windows 7 Home Premium version, which will be one of the first Intel Atom Oak Trail-powered devices out there, says the company. According to MSI's Director of North American Sales Andy Tung, Intel's tablet solution does show both battery life and performance improvements over the current Atom chips, but it's "not extremely significant." Based on our discussion with Tung, we got the feeling that it's a step in the right direction for Atom but still not as long-lasting as it needs to be to compete with ARM-based tablets. Beyond that, the tablet measures less than an inch thick and will have a 1024 x 600-resolution, multitouch display, mini-HDMI and mini-USB ports, an SD card slot, and an accelerometer. Tung wasn't ready to reveal pricing, but he said it should be available in early 2011. On the Android side of things, MSI's got a dual-core Tegra 2-powered 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800-resolution slate prepped with the same selection of ports and features -- although, this one is slightly thinner and also has a drop-proof design. So, what version of Android will it run? Well, that depends on Google's timing, says Tung. If Android 3.0 or Honeycomb is available by the February / March timeframe MSI will go with that option -- however, if it's not, it will go with Gingerbread, so it can hit the market earlier in 2011. We have to say both tablets sound rather intriguing, but will they be able to go up against the hundreds of others coming at CES: The Tablet Year? We'll know more in Vegas, that's for sure!
MSI's 10-inch WindPad 100 advances past prototype stage, gets pictured with a dock
The wait for a legitimate mass market Windows 7 tablet continues, but at least MSI is showing signs of progress. The WindPad 100, which we saw at Computex in prototype form, has now reached design maturity and the concordant gallery of pictures has been distributed to the world. There's no word of any spec changes, meaning we're still looking at a 1.66GHz Atom Z530 CPU, 32GB SSD, 2GB RAM, Wind Touch UI overlay, and HDMI plus 2x USB ports on the stat sheet. The 100 has been joined by a new dock in these latest images, which will throw in the typical expanded connectivity options. We can probably expect to see both reappearing at IFA in Berlin in about a month's time.%Gallery-99506%
