When will the madness end? New slate devices currently seem to be announced as frequently as a new Eee PC model was a year or so ago. Why are all these slates popping up, and is anyone even buying them? This all seems awfully familiar too… didn’t we already hate these devices once before?

What’s with all of these damn slates lately?

Over the last few months we’ve seen slate devices spread at a ridiculous pace. For a simple demonstration of this, take a look at the visual version of the Portal — 6 of the top 10 devices are slates!

Archos 9 – Evigroup Pad – Wits A81– Viliv X70 – Viliv S5 – CrunchPad

And while not yet in the Portal, the IDC Vega was also just recently announced, and there are plenty of other pending slates that I haven’t listed.

Where did they come from?

I blame one device, one example of vaporware, and one rumor. That would be the iPhone, the CrunchPad, and the Apple tablet rumor respectively. Hat tip to Jenn of Pocketables.net who got me started thinking about article by saying that Apple “messed up inch what people think of as the ideal form-factor in a device. Apple showed that a slate form factor at the iPhone size can be a a productive and downright useful tool, but only when all of the pieces fit together perfectly — meaning not just hardware, but software as well.

Then we got started with the Apple tablet rumors which could have an entire article dedicated to them alone — but I’ll spare you the agony. Long story short, Apple tablet rumors seemed to start forming from a combination of wishful thinking and a few touch oriented patents that Apple filed. Now weekly we see at least one rumor. But what effect has this had on these slate devices? Well I’d argue that without this Apple tablet rumor insanity, the majority of these devices wouldn’t even exist. Apple tablet rumors have been ongoing since at least 2000, but we don’t see them start to pop up in the form that we know today until shortly after the release of the iPhone in 2007.

Even the CrunchPad (one of the first of these slate devices) which doesn’t appear to have been conceived as a response to the tablet rumors, was compared from all angles to this rumored device, that doesn’t even exist, from the get-go. With some headlines heralding it as an “Apple tablet killer inch despite the fact that it is often hard, nay impossible, to kill something that has no physical presence in this thing that we call reality.

Is it just me, or does it seem like most of the above devices are attempts to beat Apple to a market that they might not even enter, using the power of the Applet tablet madness to drive interest? Honestly, most of these devices aren’t even released yet and they are still commanding top positions here in the Portal. Clearly there is interest, but that doesn’t mean that these devices are going to be any good. In fact if we think back just a few years ago, we might find ourselves with a feeling of promnesia.

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A company called Innovative Convergent Devices has put info up on their website about a new device called the Vega, which purportedly will be an Android 2.0 powered slate device which will come in your choice of size: 7 inch, 11 inch or up to a whooping 15.6 inch.

Check the specs (likely subject to change):

• Android OS
• 7/11/15.6 inch resistive touchscreen at 1366×768
• Nvidia Tegra (probably the Tegra 600 or 650, which are both Arm 11)
• 4 hour battery life
• 512MB of RAM
• 512MB of memory (expandable through MicroSD)
• Bluetooth and WiFi b/g
• Options for 2G or 3G data module
• headphone jack and webcam
• dual microphones
• accelerometer

And one other thing listed on the spec sheet that is rather odd: 262,000 colors (6-bit) which seems sort of low for a device that claims to be usable for HD content.

The press release on IDC’s site says that the device will be released through “Tier 1 inch carriers in the US, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, which should mean that the device will be subsidized. They are also set to show off a demo unit at this year’s CES (Jan 7-10) and hope to launch in the first half of 2010.

There is a lot of talk about the Vega being a “no compromise inch product that consumers really want, however, I don’t know about you… but I’d call a slate device with no physical keyboard and a resistive touchscreen just that: a compromise. Your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.

[GottaBeMobile]

Jenn over at Pocketables.net is getting ready to take a break from the site to become a new mother, but she isn’t leaving the internet empty handed as she goes. She recently got the Kohjinsha PA [Portal page] series convertible which might just be a device so ugly that only a mother could love it — yet still she managed to dish out a mini review of the PA series as her last post until she returns sometime next year. Jump over and have a look at the smallest convertible in town.

Don’t forget to check out the M1 size comparisons as well. I certainly didn’t realize that the PA series was nearly the same size as the UMID M1 [Portal page] until I did so myself!

Jkk has spotted that the Archos 9 has been dissected over at the FCC. Unfortunately you won’t find unicorns or magic inside, but just your everyday Atom guts and computer components. Swapping out the 1.8 inch HDD which (jkk identified to be PATA with a ZIF connector) shouldn’t be hard if you don’t mind cracking the case on your Archos 9 [Portal page] as jkk said, it’s fun to see what they look like inside. And in case anyone was unsure, SIM slot has been verified via these images so 3G is a-go for the US version.

A word on availability: Archos seemed fairly adamant about the quoted October 22nd launch, but we haven’t seen the Archos 9 appear in stores yet. However, all indicators are pointing to soon hopefully before we leave the month of November.

Over the last 6 months or so, Viliv has created a near rebirth of the UMPC, stunning a good number of people with the highly regarded S5 and X70. Not to long after, they brought the Viliv S7, their first device with a keyboard. I wrote an article back in July titled: The Viliv S7’s biggest challenge: the keyboard. After having a chance to review the S7 for myself, I found the keyboard to be the most disappointing part of the S7. At the same time however the S7 made me very excited for Viliv’s upcoming 10″ version, the S10.

What we’ve see so far from the S10 has shown it to be a very attractive device. If the S10 has the footprint to offer a good typing experience, and still delivers the good points of the S7, I feel that the S10 could break through and become a serious netbook competitor which will put the name Viliv in front of a large new audience that they haven’t yet had access to.

The keyboard forecast on the S10 is looking really good so far. From early pictures that Chippy shot of the unit at IDF 09 I can see that the S10’s footprint gave Viliv enough room to fix every single issue that I noted in my S7 review. They fixed the tiny right shift key by dropping the arrow keys down and providing enough space for a full right shift key. They fixed the F11 and F12 keys being bound to F9 and F10 as the extra width provided room for these keys to be in their own dedicated space. They also put the tilde key back where it needs to go, which aligns the number row correctly, and fixed other things like odd punctuation placement and backward Fn/ctrl keys.

But netbooks as of late have offered rather good typing experiences, so presuming that the S10’s keyboard can match these, how does the S10 stand a chance of competing against already established brands? The answer to this lies in the S10’s battery life, convertibility, and high res screen.

The S7 had hugely impressive battery life, running for almost 6 hours at 100% CPU usage, 100% brightness, and WiFi+BT turned on. This means that the S7 should run for around 8 hours with regular usage. Incredibly fast standby times allow one to extend the battery life of the S7 to great lengths. If the S10 can offer the same speedy standby and huge battery life, it’ll beat out most existing netbooks and would be great for a thin, light weight, ‘all day’ computing experience. Viliv is currently quoting the S10 as having 10 hours of battery, and given Viliv’s previous battery life claims I would say this is fairly accurate, and within an hour of realistic usage.

The S10 isn’t 100% official yet, but the one that Chippy looked at in an IDF 09 video hands-on had a 1366×768 resolution screen, which again beats out most of the netbook contenders. Then there is the flexibility that the touchscreen and convertible aspect offer. The majority of netbooks out there today aren’t touchscreen equipped and definitely aren’t convertible. This fact alone puts the S10 in direct competition with devices like the Gigabyte TouchNote [Portal page] and Asus Eee T91 [Portal page].

If the S10 can be competitive in the netbook field and stand its ground against the existing convertible options, I think that it could have a big impact on Viliv as a company getting the company into the eyes of a much broader range than they’ve been used to because previously they’ve been dealing in a rather niche market, and for ultra mobile PC fans out there — some of that additional market may flow through Viliv to their other devices, and introduce new people to the world of UMPCs.

Of course it will all really depend on the price that Viliv picks for the S10. Hopefully it’ll hit low enough to compete with netbooks and will create choice and competition for consumers, while being an impressive debut product for Viliv’s foray into the netbook space. Most of the other players will have some serious catching up to do if the S10 jumps onto the scene with a reasonable price, 10 hour battery life, great keyboard, high-res screen and convertible form factor to boot!

Related article: Kindle for (UM)PC now available.
Related article: What’s the best PC for the Amazon Kindle PC software?

I doubt many of you will be spending $599 on a ultra mobile PC just for the Kindle PC application but if you’re thinking of a mobile tablet PC anyway, here’s my top tip for a good PC-based ebook reading experience. The Viliv X70 UMPC. (Video after the jump.)

I won’t claim that this is a perfect e-reader device (see this article for an idea of the ideal PC for ebook reading) and as the Kindle software is locked-down to the Amazon store, it’s hardly flexible but considering I can run Mobipocket, PDFs and practically every other format of ebook known, it works out to be quite the flexible solution. Oh, and it’s a PC!

For those that aren’t familiar with the X70, it runs an Intel Atom at 1.3Ghz with a fast SSD drive and has a battery life of up to around 7 or 8 hours. It weighs 660gm and you can buy it with an optional built-in 3G module. More information here.

Make sure you watch the video in ‘HQ’ mode (button bottom-right) for the best quality.

Sascha from Netbooknews has just tweeted that the Kindle application for the PC is now available. ‘This is the beginning of the end for the Kindle hardware’ he says.

Well I’ve installed the software, linked it to an account in the UK and sure enough, it works like a charm. I just bought a book online, hit F5 and there it was on the PC.

As you can see I’ve got it running on my Gigabyte T1028M with the convertible touchscreen. I’ve rotated the screen and set the text to max width. That’s what it looks like on a 600×1028 screen. The margins are somewhat wide don’t you think? Touching the screen on the left and right margins changes page. You can access the contents, cover and bookmarks but you can’t make notes or highlights. That’s coming soon…

As with all our services, we plan to continue improving Kindle for PC. Below are some features we are thinking about bringing to Kindle for PC in the near future:

• Create notes and highlights
  Thanks to Whispersync, you can already read your notes and highlights from other devices on Kindle for PC. We’d like to add the ability to create notes and highlights using the Kindle for PC application.
• Search
  Find a word or a sentence in the book you are currently reading.
• Zoom and rotate images
  Click on an image to see an expanded view and rotate it if desired.

Images (the cover at least) are in glorious Technicolor!

Next up…the Viliv X70. It’s a tablet, much lighter and one of the best PC’s you can get if you want to take advantage of the Kindle for PC software [Article: What’s the best PC for the Kindle PC software?]

I’ll run off a quick video of the X70 and post it in a new article. or should I read a book. Hmm…

Not too long ago we wondered what happened to the T91 which seemed to launch only to quickly succumb to a total lack of supply in the face of big demand.

There still doesn’t appear to be one simple answer as to why the Asus Eee T91 [Portal page] went through some awfully turbulent supplies at its initial launch, but it would seem that to a certain extent things were waiting on Windows 7.

Now suddenly it looks like Dynamism and Amazon have plenty of T91s to sell, and the aptly named and multi-touch capable T91MT, which Chippy mentioned was pre-ordering last week, is now shipping as well.

The T91MT is the first multi-touch version of the T91 and it ships with Windows 7 (the regular T91 ships with XP). It still isn’t even official on Asus.com, but I suppose that isn’t stopping vendors like Amazon from selling it.

Seems like ‘kubel’ from recently established MyT91.info is one of the first to get his/her hands on the T91MT and has already provided an unboxing with a full review soon to come.

We’ll have to wait on further reports, but a glance at a T91MT intro video on YouTube seems to imply that the unit is capable of pressure sensitivity and palm rejection despite lacking an active digitizer which is quite an interesting proposition.

Update: Kubel from myt91.info has left us some info in the coments, and among other things say that the T91MT does not appear to have a pressure sensitive screen (ie: can’t tell the difference between a hard touch and a soft touch). This is disappointing to hear, but then again we can’t really expect full tablet PC features on a little netbook sized (and priced) convertible.