Acer, HP, Panasonic Display Netbooks, Tablets at MWC

by Nathan Eddy

Sporting a 10.1-inch LED-backlit screen at 720p resolution, Wi-Fi connectivity with optional 3G and 7.1-channel audio output, this netbook also offers 10 hours of battery life (its high power efficiency earned it the Energy Star v5.0 qualification) and is the first netbook to run Nvidias Ion 2 chip set.

The Toughbook H1 Field is a handheld tablet pairing Panasonic toughness with enterprise savvy. At 3.4 pounds, it features a 10.4-inch touch screen, an Intel Atom processor and Qualcomm Gobi2000 technology for flexible connectivity. It runs Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system, with the option to downgrade to XP Tablet. It also includes a 1.86GHz Atom Z540 chip, has 2GB of RAM memory and pairs a 10.4-inch, sunlight-readable dual-touch display.

This Google Android-powered netbook runs Version 1.6 of the open-source operating system and is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. It sports a 10.1-inch touch-sensitive display. While HP has not yet announced a release date, it is expected that operator Telefonica will offer the device with a subsidized price.

Launched at MWC by OpenProject, this system is based on the “Moorsetown” platform (the third generation of the Atom platform for MIDs, which contains an Atom processor architecture) and features USB ports, two cameras, a 7-inch multitouch TFT LED-backlit LCD screen, and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity. Unlike the heavily publicized Apple iPad, this tablet does offer Adobe Flash support.

This touch-screen tablet features a 10.1-inch display and a choice of Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic or Windows 7 Home Premium operating systems. Also included are three USB ports, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support. It is powered by an Atom N540 CPU. Storage options include a 160GB or 320GB hard drive, with 2GB of RAM.

Positioned as a formidable competitor to the iPad, the Adam tablet offers a 10.1-inch TFT LCD module with LED backlight, built-in microphone and 3.2-megapixel swivel camera, as well as a virtual keyboard and a multitouch, fingerprint-resistant and scratch-resistant surface with the option of a matte finish or anti-glare coating.

Samsung brought LTE (Long Term Evolution) to the netbook at this years MWC, demonstrating the next-gen networks capability—though it likely wont be widespread and ready until 2010 at the earliest. LTE offers much lower latency compared with an HSPA link (10ms compared to 50ms) in addition to download speeds of up to 100Mb/s and uploads of up to 50Mb/s. Though just for show (and bragging rights), the demo showed MWC participants what will be possible in the future.