We dropped by Viewsonic's IFA stand to have a look at the company's new ViewPad 10, announced this morning and teased before the show.
It's a 10-inch tablet with dual-boot, so you can switch between Windows 7 Home Premium and Android 1.6.
Viewsonic uses Android 2.2 on the new Viewsonic ViewPad 7, but newer versions of Android aren't (officially) supported by Intel's Atom processor – this unit uses a 1.66GHz N455 variant.
The dual-boot user experience isn't yet that refined – you need to log right out of Windows or Android to get to this basic OS-boot menu.
Derek Wright, Viewsonic's European product marketing manager said that the company was working to polish this experience up and possibly provide fast switching between both operating systems.
The tablet has a good complement of ports, with US and mini VGA and a SIM slot – though there will be no 3G version to start with. Micro SD means you can add to the existing 16GB SSD with up to 32GB of extra strorage. There's also a 1.3 megapixel webcam on the front.
As you'd expect there are built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections as well as a 'G' Sensor that reorients the screen – again, this needed a little more work as the screen didn't re-orientate as immediately as it should have within Windows.
Your comments (5) Click to add a new comment
quatermass
November 8th 2010
5. Without Android 2.2 on-board it's a non-starter for most of us.
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backstroker
September 5th 2010
4. @mattrs
Actually, they just might, if they're after the so far tablet-agnostic corporate market which has a massive investment in Windows, and is at least as significant as the pretty toys consumer audience represented by "Joe Public" (and, yes, I'm one of those) and so assiduously courted by Mr. Jobs. And guess what - corporates have lots of IT people.
If, and it's a big if, Microsoft can enable W7 as a useable touch tool AND the implementation has a seamless Exchange interaction Viewsonic could be on to something here.
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mattrs
September 4th 2010
3. They just don't get it do they? The reason Apple's iPad is so successful is people don't want a PC anymore! Well, non-IT people, which is the vast majority of Jo Public!
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mrmarks
September 3rd 2010
2. its a neat idea but windows really needs to be optimised for touch its way to fiddly
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bradavon
September 3rd 2010
1. Why are there 3 Android-x86's listed? Neat idea. It needs to ship with Android 2.2 to be competitive though. Android 1.x to 2.x is a big jump in usability.
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