Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles facing tablet adoption is price. Not everyone can justify spending $500+ on one, but thanks to the newly announced MSI WindPad Enjoy 7, they can get into the tablet game for half the price.

I met up with the folks at MSI at their Computex booth and they took me behind closed doors to show off two new additions to their family. We’ll start with the cheaper of the two. The Enjoy 7 is, as its name implies, a 7-inch tablet. They have it running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but they stayed mum on whether Honeycomb would eventually get sent to this device.

Power comes by way of an ARM Cortex A8 1.2GHz processor. The screen resolution is on the low side (800 x 480) and MSI doesn’t have licensing to use Android Market either. They’re working on a workaround, but I guess that’s the price you pay when you cut the MSRP down to $249. Lack of Android Market could be a deal breaker for many, even if they have “AppsLib App market [with] thousands of games supported.”

Basically the same deal applies to the 10-inch MSI WindPad Enjoy 10, except the screen gets a better resolution (1024×768). That gets bumped to $299. Realistically, though, spending an extra $100 on the Asus Eee Pad Transformer sounds like a better deal to us, regardless of whether you splurge to pick up the keyboard dock for the Transformer too.

Photos: Michael Kwan

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Weighing in at just 1.6 and 1.76 lbs, it’s a wonder why MSI named their pair of tablet computers the “WindPad.”

The 10.1″ tablets both boast 10-point multitouch screens as opposed to the usual two-point, are only half and inch thick at their thinnest point, get eight to 10 hours of battery life and have an assortment of I/O ports, including USB and HDMI.

But this is where the WindPad branches into two options: The 100A or the 100W.

The 100A is the lighter of the two, runs Android and, for some reason, uses an unspecified ARM processor as opposed to the Intel Menlow Z530 you’ll find in the Windows-based 100W. You’ll only get the option of 3G connectivity with the Android version, as well as a digital compass and GPS.

If you go with the 100W, with a 32GB solid state hard drive and Windows 7 Home Premium as the OS, you’ll be stuck with WiFi as your only option for mobile connectivity as you schlep the extra quarter-pound around with you, but you get a superior processor as compared to its Android brother. Trivial? Possibly. Justifiable? I doubt it.

The tablets aren’t as cheap as we had anticipated, with the 100W slated to sell at about $500 at its release in the first quarter this year. And based on what little product specs MSI is giving out, they definitely aren’t the best tablets we’ve seen come out of this year’s CES.

[MSI]

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MSI doesn’t want to put all its tablet eggs in the same touchscreen basket. We already know that some ARM-based models with NVIDIA Tegra 2 (and Android 3.0 Honeycomb) are being planned, but it seems that MSI has some “Wintel” plans up its sleeve too.

The plan, it seems, is to unveil “other tablet PCs” at next month’s CES that will be running on some version of Windows and get the power from the Intel Oak Trail platform. Interestingly, there are also rumors that Microsoft could be unveiling Windows 8 at the same trade show and this new version could be more suitable for tablets for Windows 7. It’s not like they’re going to plunk Windows Phone on there.

There’s no word on any more specs for these Wintel MSI tablets, like the kind of storage or the size of screen, but it’s expected that MSI will “adopt a more aggressive pricing strategy to promote its tablet PCs,” a strategy long since used by companies like Acer to undercut the competition. MSI has unveiled several tablet concepts beginning with CES 2010, and others here, and here, although none ever materialized. Only time will tell this time around.

What do you think? Would you buy an MSI Windows tablet if it was, say, $400 or less?

Photo: Gizmodo

[DigiTimes]

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MSI SketchBook Photo: Michael Kwan

On the surface the MSI Sketch Book may look like yet another iPad tablet clone, but hidden deep inside is something quite different. Shown for the first time ever at Computex Taipei 2010, the Sketch Book is a device inching towards what we hoped the Microsoft Courier would bring us; a little bit of dual screen love anyone? Not just yet, but it’s close.

On one side of the Sketch Book we have something that looks a lot like a Wacom tablet; graphic designers with a bit of artistic expression? Perhaps just some analog note taking.  Whereas the other side offers a conventional QWERTY keyboard.  In effect, you get dual functionality with a single display. I’d say it’s pretty innovative; whether it’s useful or not is up to you to decide.

Rounding out the specs are the 12-inch WSVGA LED panel, Intel Atom processor, and Intel GMA 3150 shared graphics. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, MSI also has the “Wind Pad” to compete with the iPad a little more directly.

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Following up on yesterday’s official unveiling of the Apple iPad tablet computer, it’s not suprising to see the floodgates opening from its competitors. One of the first devices to join the iPad-occupied arena is a yet-unnamed MSI tablet PC.

Although there are definitely tablet PCs, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), and UMPCs already on the market, this MSI product is much more in line with what the iPad is trying to accomplish. The features sound very similar too, except for the lack of Cupertino flair, of course.

With the MSI tablet, the chipset comes by way of Nvidia Tegra and it comes equipped with a 10-inch color touchscreen. We’re hearing that the MSI tablet will have “wireless support,” but there is no direct indication whether this refers to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, or all of the above. The provided picture looks like Google Android is under the hood.

As with the Apple iPad, the MSI net tablet will also be priced starting at $500. The current timeline calls for a launch in the second half of 2010, which will probably usher in accusations of being an iPad clone, justified or not.

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I’d imagine that this may be more proof of concept than anything else, but what an interesting concept it is. Powered by Windows 7 Home Premium, the MSI Dual Screen Notebook offers a virtual QWERTY keyboard on the bottom screen when you need it, offering haptic feedback much like certain touchscreen smartphones.

Under the hood is a 32GB solid state drive and 2GB of RAM. When it comes time to read an e-book or two, you can rotate the twin 10-inch displays so that you hold the device like a physical book. There was also a smaller version with much the same functionality. The downside is that there is no accelerometer, so you have to rotate the screens manually.

MSI isn’t the only company doing this either. A few booths over at Asus, we see the concept that came from WePC.com. The idea with that site is that the community can “dream it” and Asus will “build it.” Will we see something like this hit the market? Not anytime soon, I suspect.

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The device is about the size of a netbook; it’s all metal and it actually felt quite heavy in our hand. Both screens are 10 inch multitouch displays that interact the way two monitors would on a dual-display setup. It ran a little sloppy; it’s obviously running some beta software, but the digital keyboard was easy to pull up and had a haptic-like feedback when typing on the bottom screen. For a very early build it is quite impressive. MSI actually plans to bring it to market within the year.

Source Engadget

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On the outside, the MSI Wind U135 looks like just about every other Wind netbook that you’ve already encountered. It gets a 10-inch LCD, a six-cell battery, 250GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, integrated Wi-Fi, and a memory card reader.

The big difference is the new Pine Trail platform. This is supposed to provide improved performance and better battery life (7.5 hours). There’s the Intel N450 (1.66GHz) processor, Windows 7 Starter, and Intel GMA3150 (UMA) graphics to round out the package.

Look for the MSI Wind U135 to start shipping in “early 2010″ with a list price of $329.99. It’ll come in your choice of silver, red, black, and blue.

Source: MSI

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But that’s not the only thing that will be setting the MSI Wind U150 apart from the competition. Intel is working on the next generation of Atom microprocessors and the new Intel Atom chipset is planned to be officially launched at the upcoming CES in Las Vegas. MSI wants to be among the first to use this new chip.

MSI hopes to be the first to market with a netbook that features the new Intel Pine Trail Atom platform and the touchy-feely MSI Wind U150 will be a part of that series. It gets a 10-inch display to go with improved graphics performance and (at least) 20% better power consumption. Oh, and it gets Windows 7 too, though the lack of multitouch means it won’t do the Touch Pack apps with Windows 7.

Before the Wind U150 hits the market, we should expect to see the MSI Wind U210. This takes on the AMD Yukon platform in lieu of Intel Atom. The $379 model gets Windows XP, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. The $429 version gets Vista Premium. Look for both to launch next month.

Source: Gizmodo

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