I call the Samsung XE700 an Ultraslate.  It’s effectively an Ultrabook in a tablet form factor and it comes with a Bluetooth keyboard and a docking station. It’s one of the most flexible, usable tablets I’ve seen in a long time and it’s also a design milestone. This is the first time I’ve seen desktop-class computing in under 1KG of tablet with a decent (for tablet PCs) battery life. It’s a 2011 design too which means with Ivy Bridge, those designs can move forward with smaller, lighter form facts and/or longer battery life.  Once you’ve got all the electronics in the screen you can do some very cool designs including ones with detachable keyboards. Intel CFO Stacy Smith reveals in a video by The Street (below) that he’s seen such a design. We’re wondering if it’s this Compal design that we saw at CES.

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Last time we caught up with Bob Morris, Director of Mobile Computing at ARM, we spoke at length about consumer tablets and smartbooks, the software stack and what would attract a customer. I also asked him how significant the ‘smart’ device category was. At that time he said it was ‘extremely important.’ I’m guessing that after just 3 months, the category has even more weight within ARM to the point where it’s on the critical path.

In this interview, Bob talks to Stacey Higginbotham of GigaOM around the 7 inch Android-based prototype from Compal and poses the question, “What makes [tablets] hot and useful? inch Price-points are mentioned along with 1080p video, 3G and battery life over 10 hours. He also talk about ‘single pin number’ payments through another ARM technology that provides ‘ATM level security.’

I just can’t help thinking back to Origami when I see that tablet.

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We saw a lot of tablets at CES and it was Nvidia who seemed to be pushing the category harder than anyone else. Apart from the Tegra2 display cabinet showing a whole series of devices (video) there were a few other interesting devices out on display. The video below shows a slim 10 inch Compal tablet that looks almost production ready in terms of casing but as with all the other devices there was no information about who would produce this device and when it would be available. As far was we know, this one, along with all the other prototypes we saw, might never come to the market.

The difference between CES and reality can be wide!