Gigabyte outs 10.1-inch Slate PC packing Bay Trail and leggy battery life

Gigabyte S10M
Bay Trail comes to the Slate PC

Gigabyte has launched a new Slate PC that offers tablet-like portability, all-day battery life and more connections than the Mafia.

The S10M comes with Windows 8.1 pre-installed in a body toting a design that aims to bridge the gap between tablets and all-in-one PCs.

At a thickness of nearly 15mm, the S10M is a fair bit chunkier than the iPad Air or Galaxy Note 10.1, but it comes with several storage options including a 2.5-inch mSATA SSD (64GB, 128GB or 256GB) or a 2.5-inch 7mm 5400 RPM hard drive (320GB, 500GB or 1TB).

The S10M has a 10.1-inch capacitive multi-touch LCD screen with a 1366 x 768 resolution, backed up by a dual-core Celeron N2805 Intel "Bay Trail" processor clocked at 1.46 Ghz, Intel HF Graphics 4000 and 2 or 4GB of DDR3L RAM. All of this is powered by the slate's 29.6 Wh Li-polymer battery, which promises all-day life.

Business on the go

The S10M also offers full PC connectivity with a USB 2.0 and 3.0 port, D-sub, HDMI and RJ45 (Ethernet) ports, Mic-in, Earphone-out, SD card reader, DC-in jack, battery port and SIM card slot. That's a host of connectivity options on quite a small model.

It seems like the S10M will be a useful tool for anyone travelling on business to multiple offices and locations, but perhaps all those options are overkill for someone who would wish to just use it at home. Trailing an Ethernet cable might defeat the point of an all-in-one slate around the house.

The slate features wireless LAN 802.11 and Bluetooth V4, as well as 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps Ethernet connectivity.

Optional additions to the slate include a 3G SIM card slot, all day extended battery life, 3.5G support and a docking station that allows the S10M to turn into a multimedia centre with a DVD multi-layer drive.

The Gigabye S10M is available globally, but as yet we have no word on price.