Aug 07, 2010 (This link will automatically start a download of Reimage that you can save to your computer.) Answer: XP Home edition.

The tablet market is moving fast this year and it’s hard to keep up. So here’s the State Slate of the Tablet. Apple iPad running iPhone OS Since the death of the Newton a long time ago there have been rumors that Apple was developing a new tablet. Steve Jobs finally announced the iPad earlier this year which, in case you’ve been on an extended remote vacation, is available now running iPhone OS.

It is available in WiFi only or WiFi+3G, the latter being a smart choice to get the most out of the iPad (pictured). The iPad uses the same App Store as the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPad can run iPhone apps but dedicated iPad apps look best. We now either own one, want one or don’t know what it’s for. Personally I didn’t know what it was for, then wanted one and lined up on launch day to own one. I now know exactly what it’s for, which is around 75% of all my Internet and media consumption.

The chances are that if a website doesn’t work on the iPad, I’ll find another website or better still, an app. Limitations include the iPad’s lack of Flash support, no easily accessible file explorer and a beautiful screen which is difficult to read outdoors. Strengths include ten hour battery life, loads of great apps and the ability to enjoy good Internet content without having to trawl the whole Internet to find it. PC tablets running Windows Windows tablets have existed ever since the release of Windows XP Tablet Edition years ago. These early tablets were typically ultraportable laptops with touchscreens that swiveled to convert the device into a tablet. They used resistivetouchscreens and required a stylus for input, or a very precise fingernail.

The current crop of Windows 7 tablets, spearheaded by the likes of the Archos 9 (pictured), are certainly far lighter than their ancestors but the weaknesses remain. Notably the resistive screens and stylus or trackpad input method.

Unfortunately there are just too many aspects of Windows 7 usage that require precise interaction to allow tablets to really exploit the OS. Multitouch gestures have been built into Windows 7 but as soon as you try using an application like Microsoft Office on a Windows tablet, it is beaten in usability by iWork for iPad which was created from the ground up for tablet usage.

Battery life is also an issue on Windows tablets which mainly now use the Intel Atom processor. This is a very power efficient CPU but real life battery usage on these tablets tends to top out at 2-3 hours. Android The Google and Open Handset Alliance backed Android OS is making a big play for tablet market share. Or perhaps I should say lots of little plays, because like the Windows tablet market the Android one is made up of a gazillion of emerging models. Unlike the Windows market however, the Android devices we’ve seen so far are all running slightly different versions of Android. Personally I feel that while Android will overcome the obstacle of fragmentation in the smartphone market, I believe it will greatly hinder the platform in the tablet market.

Most users ultimately don’t care if they can’t run this or that app on their phone as long as the device runs a core set of important apps. With tablets it’s different because they are perceived as far more capable devices than phones due to their screen size. If a user tries to download an app which only works on Android 2.1 onto a 2.0 device she purchase that day, frustration will mount.

The fragmentation of Android builds on tablets may hold back the rise of the platform if left unchecked. In terms of actual Android tablet devices in the marketplace, we have seen the JooJoo come and be poorly received. That was the most high profile launch until the recent Dell Streak (pictured above), which is a small tablet and large smartphone wrapped up in a heavy, less than pocket friendly chassis. There was a ton of Android tablets announced at Computex last week running various builds of the OS, which seemed to reinforce the idea that fragmentation is the biggest issue facing this platform. Web OS by Palm HP recently acquired Palm and the jury is out on whether the HP Slate, which was due to be launched imminently running Windows 7, will be shelved in favor of a HP Web OS tablet. Those who have used a Palm Pre (pictured) or Pixi may feel that Web OS could be the foundation of a very useful tablet interface.

We’ll just have to wait to see what HP has in store for us on this front. I’ve been eager to give the Windows 7 Beta a workout following the demos I saw at CES. My living room Media Center PC was an ideal candidate. Lostprophets Sway Download. It’s a three year old Pentium 4 which takes care of all our viewing, media and browsing needs on Windows XP Media Center 2005. Microsoft has claimed that Windows 7 is a streamlined OS capable of running on lower spec hardware than Vista, it’s time to see if that’s really true Test environment For reference my PC is running a 2.93GHz P4 with 3GB DDR400 RAM, 500GB hard disk and a low end Geforce 7200GS.

Not the most scintillating system by modern standards and probably equivalent to a $250 purchase these days from the refurbished inventory of e-tailers. The version of Windows 7 Beta I have is Build 7000. I’ll refer to it as W7B in this article. Installations never go smoothlyor do they? Installation was initially nerveracking but ultimately painless. Nerveracking because I had to split a live primary partition into two, to create a boot partition for the new OS.

Painless because once had done its partitioning stuff, Windows 7 Beta installed in superfast time, restarting a couple of times and then it was done. I had backed up my XP partition to another drive just in case, but fortunately all went according to the masterplan and W7B automatically created a dual-boot environment for me. XP booted just like before and I so was all set for my W7B test. Stopwatch at the ready The first thing I noticed was a faster boot time.

This could have been due to having a fresh install so I initially reserved judgement on that one. However now that three weeks has passed and I’ve installed everything I’m likely to for a while, the swift boot-up lives on. It’s not a life changing improvement but in the region of ten seconds faster than my XP boot sequence once all startup items have completed. Sounding off All navigation elements were very responsive: Aero, widgets and snap-to-edge all performed well with no lag. But then I noticed there was no sound.

W7B had found my motherboard’s SPDIF output but did not configure it correctly. A quick internet search revealed the latest Vista drivers which duly solved the issue. In fact I now get proper Dolby transmission and far more signal reaching my amp, which means having to apply less gain within the amp therefore achieving a better signal-to-noise ratio than with my XP setup. Taskbar implemented cum laude Taskbar, oh glorious taskbar. So much has been already, what can I add? This really is a great addition in W7B, I can envisage how well it could work once the touch interface gets enabled on the full release. Seeing thumbnail representations of an application’s open windows is a fantastic browsing aid.

Being able to jump into application functions directly from thumbnail menus takes everything a step further. Manual Flash Starblitz 320 Btz Air more. Best of all, the thumbnails are dynamic representations so if you are waiting for a window to complete a certain action you can hover over its taskbar icon to view its progress in the thumbnail.

CPU and Resource Management Having an older spec PC presented a good opportunity to see how W7B would cope with average resources. In the initial days following installation I noticed some frantic CPU and disk activity, which I traced to Windows Media Player cataloging my music and video collection. Once that was done, CPU activity became XP-like whilst memory allocation was definitely smarter. Like Vista, W7B was able to address all 3GB of RAM whilst my 32-bit XP build was never capable of this. W7B also supports ReadyBoost so I threw in a 4GB SDHC card and dedicated the whole thing to the OS.

That’s a cheap 4GB at $10, although ReadyBoost doesn’t make use of flash cards in quite the same way as conventional RAM. However the combination keeps my paging file to a minimum and I’ve not experienced memory crunches. Windows Firewall The versions of Windows Firewall built into XP and Vista were never taken too seriiously by the security fraternity due their inability to block outbound traffic.

So whilst others had difficulty reaching your computer, your computer could reach otherswhich is a pretty big risk given the amount of nasty malware out there. The W7B Firewall changes all that with firewall rules configurable for incoming and outgoing traffic. This could seriously hurt the likes of ZoneAlarm and others, who have thrived to date on the weakness of Windows Firewall.

I run ZoneAlarm on my XP partition, but I haven’t needed to download it for my W7B setup so far. Internet TV & Media Center Ever since the touchscreen demo of W7B Media Center I saw at CES, I’ve been aching to try out the integration of Internet TV in the EPG. Until now we’ve needed to open a browser, navigate to NBC’s website, find the news page, find the video page and then start streaming the news. W7B changes this by putting content from nbc.com (and many others) right into the EPG so it’s accessible from within Media Center with the remote control.

The demo of this looked awesome and it’s just as good in my living room. Content takes a little while longer to access than regular TV channels, but it’s a heck of a great feature and the integration is seamless. News, concerts, full episodes are all available and free to access with occasional advertisements for some content. Snap-to-side Throwing a widow to the side of the screen results in W7B automatically resizing it to fill half the screen. This makes comparing documents or images super easy.

Throwing to the top maximizes the window. Again it’s easy to see how these small but useful enhancements will make life easier once the touch version gets released. What’s needs work? HmmmI haven’t found anything yet inherent in W7B which consistently fails. My sound sometimes cuts out following a video call, which could be a driver issue.

My computer wakes from standby mode much more often than it did in XP, probably due to some strange service which I might not need to be running. Skype is not yet fully compatible.

There’s also a registry fix out there for.msi installers which fail – I had an issue installing Office 2007 and when the installer failed W7B automatically downloaded the fix article from Microsoft’s knowledge basefinally intelligent context sensitive help has arrived. After following the instructions in the article to update the problematic registry entry the installer worked. A game-changer for Microsoft? Apart from that the whole experience has just worked superbly and I’m happily running W7B as my everyday environment now. The Beta version expires on August 1st, so perhaps this hints at the possible release timing of the full version.

Remember that the release version will hopefully be touch-enabled, so that will be a whole new ball-game, and from what I’ve seen so far Microsoft could hit a home run with this one. Today’s that HP is discussing the possibility of using Atom CPUs for notebooks as well as existing netbooks is interesting for two reasons. Firstly we have not seen the Atom in any laptops with >12″ screens, but secondly and more importantly I think this could be an indicator of confidence in early Windows 7 tests. We have already seen, and early impressions of the next-gen OS have been extremely positive for a stage so early in the pre-release phase. So what does it mean if HP really is talking to Intel about supplying the Atom for notebooks? • Performance for netbook -style tasks should be fine on Windows 7, given, which means browsing, non-HD video viewing, basic office/productivity tasks are all in scope. • Battery life should skyrocket, if the netbook crowd can be used as a benchmark.

My Wind gets over five hours in real-life usage and the only significant additional power drain on a notebook is a larger screenbut they also offer more real-estate for housing a larger battery. Could full working-day battery operation from a large-screen laptop become a mainstream reality? • The concept is good news for organizations with a mobile/flexible-working workforce and a thin-client infrastructure.

• Many consumers may only need low processing power as we move towards a web-based services computing model (eg. Web-mail/photo/music/productivity apps).

They might trade notebook HD movie editing capabilities for longer battery life in real life usagehowever this would require a sea change in marketing tecniques where high power specs aim to sell a life-changing experience. It is probably a ‘Greener’ sell though, which could lead to Atom-based notebooks being more fashionable that more energy-hungry models.

Time will tell if anything comes of this, but when I put together the early Windows 7 success stories with rumors of HP talking to Intel about the Atom then it does all start to come togetherin my hopeful mind! It’s been a week that Apple fans will want to forget. That Apple sales for November were flat year on year whilst Windows PCs gained 7%, iMac sales collapsed by 38% whilst Windows desktops fell only 15% and that the company will stop attending Macworld after the 2009 show. Apple laptop sales rose 22% compared to 15% for Windows laptops.

What does this mean for Apple? Most likely something needs to be doneand pretty fast. Apple has responded by slashing prices of its refurbished models, a move likely aimed at removing the carrying costs of old inventory. Macbook Airs are available for $1,149 on Apple’s US website at the time of writing.

Deep reductions are offered across other lines as well and online stores are offering serious discounts on new models. After a while this discounting could erode the premium perception of the brand and hurt Apple retail store sales, which are typically made at full price. Netbooks captured the the public's imagination in 2008 This may be a short term band-aid to improve working capital, but Apple needs to look deeper at its product line and offer models at prices which relate to the current economy. The company has been too late in coming to the Netbook market, which exploded with colossal growth this year following the arrival of the Asus EEE in late 2007. Apple needs a Netbook quickly, and it will need to compete with the quality of the MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One and Asus EEE range, which all sell for around $300-400. Steve Jobs said that “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” Well Apple might have to learn how.

Five hundred dollars is now premium Netbook territory as prices have been falling throughout 2008. I expect that if Apple enters the market they would choose the $600-800 range with a couple of configurations. They need this because Macbooks are no longer the coolest laptops to pull out of your bagNetbooks are. A glance at the Amazon bestseller list shows Netbooks occupying slots which Macbooks used to live in. The MSI Wind Netbook was one of the most hotly anticipated products of 2008. Can Apple introduce its own competitor to stop the rising Windows sales? Whilst Macbooks used to be the laptop of choice for Manhattan coffee shop outings, Netbooks now get the curious admiring looks.

In an America looking to downsize cars, energy usage and spending, Netbooks are the Prius of today’s laptop showroom. Clearly the slowdown in the economy has affected Apple as a seller of premium products. It also seems that Apple’s negative advertising campaign throughout 2008 against PCs may have not had the positive sales effect Apple was hoping for. In fact the plunging iMac sales figures indicate that Apple might have done better through a positive campaign promoting the benefits of the iMac compared to Windows desktops. It may be that consumers simply were unable to identify a positive value of spending the extra bucks on an iMac, which is a classic outcome of a negative advertising campaign, unless the competing product is seen as truly worthless. Clearly not the case in this instance as iMac sales plunged 23% more than Windows desktop sales.

Whilst I think Apple will pull through, it needs to revitalize its line-up to be attractive in today’s economy. And hopefully that revitalization effort will give us reasons to buy Macs, instead of reasons not to buy PCs. I want to want Macs for good reasons, not because I’m told the competition is bad. A glance at Amazon’s top 25 bestsellers gives a window into today’s netbook market. The recent $100 price drop of the Asus EEE 1000H has it selling strongly, Acer’s Aspire One Linux is sitting at number 11 and the pre-order XP version is at 14. Various other EEEs make up much of the middle groung and Micro Star International’s Wind is caught up in turbulence at 24.

Given its $399 price tag I expect the 3 cell XP Aspire One to climb that chart, although hopefully they won’t suffer from the quality control issues which sent my Linux One back for repair only days after its unboxing. Lenovo announced its entries, the S9 and S10, a few days ago. Only the S10 will be coming to the US and will bring a ten inch screen, Atom processor and XP starting from $399 in Octoberand it looks great.

An unfortunate characteristic of the Wind since its missed launch date of mid-June has been rumored, and now official, price hikes. The 3 cell XP model is now at $499, which looks forgettable compared to the pricing of the One and S10. This Wind is blowing in the wrong direction. We’re still waiting to see what Dell’s E is going to throw at us, shouldn’t be too long now.

Their rumored $299 entry price will ruffle a few feathers and their marketing might will ensure a sale or two. Then there are still more models expected to launch in Q4 with VIA’s celebrated Nano CPU, just to make buying decisions that little bit harder. If I was a betting man I’d say that Acer’s Aspire One and Lenovo’s S10 are set to be strong sellers in XP guise.

Dell won’t take any prisoners either when they launch. So within a year I expect the Wind and Mini-Note to be shaken out of the market or forced into price cutting. Perhaps the savior of the Mini-Note will be if HP can swap in the Nano for the C7. For the Wind, price cutting alone may be too late for mainstream buyers. If broad stock fails to arrive soon then how will they break onto retail shelves which already have Acers, Dells and EEE on display?

It may end up being too little too late for this great product. It’s been just six months since the launch of the and the sector has exploded.

The original UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) name has been supplanted by Microsoft’s ULCPC (Ultra Low Cost PC), Intel’s MID (Mobile Internet Device) and various manufacturer led acronyms – MSI’s forthcoming Wind is actually an abbreviation of WiFi Network Device. Screen sizes and storage space have increased, but in most cases so have price tags. Asus itself is a case in point, with its recently launched EEE PC 900 offering a nine inch screen and up to 20GB of onboard storage but a hefty $549 sticker price. The majority of the hardware on the inside is similar to the, but the increased screen real estate in a similarly sized package makes web browsing and general working more manageable.

Unfortunately the keyboard feels the same size as the original, which I struggle with after a few months of daily use. It’s fine for occasional emails etc but for more consistent work I make too many typos with it as my fingers sometimes land on two keys at once. The screen seems a bit brighter than the 701 and fills the (slightly larger) lid nicely, with the webcam still preserved. Looks and build quality haven’t kept pace with the competition however, as we segway into the HP Mini-Note which is one of the best looking laptops money can buy.

Powered by a range of VIA C7 processors up to 1.6GHz it sounds at first like it will outperform the EEE’s 900MHz Celeron, but user testimonies indicate that the Mini-Note often gets stuck in the slow lane. When I tried it out running Vista it was actually pretty decent, loading apps quickly enough for general usage. In fact if you write a lot and have limited multimedia requirements, then the Mini-Note is a fair choice because the keyboard is absolutely awesome. The keys are large, almost as large as a full size laptop, and I was able to type fluently from the get-go. The trackpad is responsive too and although the buttons are oddly placed on either side, this makes the pad’s area larger and is not a problem if you tap-to-click.

The looks, screen quality and overall usability beat the EEE and the whole thing seems better constructed too, if larger, whilst pricing is similar. The Mini-Note starts at $499 for a Linux build, compared to $549 for the Linux EEE 900. The top of the range Vista Mini-Note model sells for a not so appealing $749. Unfortunately for both the EEE and Mini-Note, their respective Celeron and VIA processors have a tough time managing multimedia applications fluidly. This is forgiveably in the $299 EEE 2G, but less so in a unit costing around twice as much.

Overall the HP Mini-Note and Asus EEE 900 have strayed away from the original EEE ultra-low-cost concept and are competing with budget laptops but offering limited power. Of course these machines are all about portability but other models due out soon may offer a better balance Speaking of which, we will see MSI’s Intel Atom-powered Wind in June. With an 80GB hard drive, ten inch screen and rumored six hour battery life under Windows XP, I’d wait to check out the Wind before handing over the plastic on either the HP or Asus just yet. Latest: After weeks of low supply, the Asus EEE PC has finally appeared. I spent some eagerly awaited quality time with the small, cute and cheap 4G model.

UMPCs: When size does matter Next to a regular ultraportable the Asus EEE PC is noticeably smaller. It´s also thinner, most likely due its lack of optical or mechanical hard drives. It does however still manage to pack in a VGA output, Ethernet port and 3 USB 2.0 connectors without needing a port replicator. The screen is also smaller than most ultraportables at seven imches, the same size as Samsung’s Q1 series. However in the case of the EEE this seems to be to keep the cost down than anything else. The lid can actually accommodate a couple more inchesof screen space and the resulting look is of a laptop from the mid 1990s with a wide screen border.

The keyboard is also a shrunken affair but is surprisingly easy to use. I was able to type lines of text accurately without any need to acclimatize. This will depend on finger size but I was pleasantly surprised. For such a thin laptop the keys also have a positive feel with a decent amount of travel. The EEE PC has a traditional trackpad which has a separated section on the right hand side.

Using the media player this section controlled playback volume. The trackpad was fairly responsive to movement but less so to taps, although it is usable. There´s only one button, like a Mac, but improving on Apple’s design the left side of the button gives a left click and the right side gives a right click (thanks for the pointer Neil).

Great idea and works well in practise. In this regard it’s similar to the iPhone home screen. But then I always thought the iPhone home screen looks simple because it only has a few preloaded applications. The EEE is similar, with limited applications it’s easy to give everything a big icon.

I expect most owners will never add any applications anyway, as much of what you need to get going is included right out of the box. The EEE ships with internet, office and media playback software sitting on top of its Linux operating system.

The look and feel is overtly Windows XP and when I was using the file explorer I actually had to do a double-take to check I was not using an early shipment of XP preloaded EEEs. Following years of anti-Microsof sentiment from some corners of the IT community, it is somehow ironic that Windows has become so popular that competitors either mimic it or allow users to run it on their own environment to attract switchers. Using the internet browser will be straightforward for most owners, with the exception that some sites optimized for Internet Explorer may not work properly. I occasionally find this on my Macbook and Nokia tablet with their respective Safari and Mozilla browsers.

Similarly the office software is not Microsoft Office so again there may be compatibility issues if you are trying to share files with MS Office users, although some common file formats are supported. The media player is also less friendly than iTunes or Windows Media Player but is usable nonetheless. All of this of course results from the low cost of the EEE. Building a Linux system is much cheaper than building a Mac or Windows system. Unfortunately file, application and peripheral compatibility is where you ultimately pay for this.

So make sure that whatever you want to do is Linux compatible before you purchase your EEE. The alternative is to either install Windows (which can be done by running the installation from an external drive), or wait for the Windows preloaded version to be released. Of course this will have a cost implication and if you then want to run Microsoft Office then this is another $150 as a home user. The EEE PC 4G’s lid houses a webcam. This is missing from the cheaper models in the range, but a fantastic feature to have if you can afford a higher end EEE. The quality of the camera is on a par with similar devices in other laptops. Every laptop should have one of these!

EEE owners are likely to take their units around with them due to the small sixe, so how is it likely to stand up to road use? First impressions are that the EEE seems well built with an assuringly solid looking hinge mechanism. Apart from this and the keys, the EEE is pretty low on moving parts. There are no mechanical hard or optical drives to break in transit so some risk associated with traditional laptops is not present in the EEE. Of course it is still vulnerable to failure like all electronics, but hopefully Asus’ choice to go for a solid state drive will save many a users’ data on a bad day.

So is it the bEEE’s knEEE’s? If you’re a light, or adventurous, user then don’t let my compatibility comments put you off.

For mobile corporate users running thin client software this is also a winning solution. It’s the middle tier of users I think are likely to struggle. These are the people who want to do funky things now and again and might not have the knowledge to do it quickly in Linux. If you’re one of these people then you may prefer to wait for the Windows version. If on the other hand you’re happy with EEE’s preloaded goodies or are a Linux lover then this is the IT bargain of 2007. Expect other companies to follow May 2008 update: Read the Asus EEE 900 vs HP Mini-Note 2133 comparo.

Jan 2008 update: As predicted above, others have followed. Read about Everex’s $399. See photos and read CES news about:, Home Entertainment,,, and..

To read all the CES 2008 articles,. For details of the new Asus R50 UMPC,. The colored EEEs are now available, Neil Berman.