Tablets may be the hottest gadgets on display at this year's Computex. But netbooks still have a presence at the trade show, and vendors are coming out with several new models that will hit the market this year. Their low cost will continue to drive sales, analysts said.
Tablets with low power dual-core chips have just started reaching the market, but some chip makers expect the devices to be further supercharged later this year with quad-core chips which were in the spotlight at the Computex trade show in Taipei.
Texas Instruments on Thursday announced a quad-core chip for tablets with features to boost application and graphics performance in Microsoft's upcoming Windows OS.
Microsoft showed Thursday the next version of its Windows OS at a press event in Taipei, unveiling a completely new tile-based interface that it hopes will be better suited for the emerging world of tablet PCs.
Intel officials say vendors are beginning to use Atom processors to power tablets not only because the chips can run Windows 7, but also because they allow the devices to run multiple OSes, providing an advantage over rival ARM Holdings.
Acer will launch a 10-inch tablet at the end of this year using both Intel's Atom processor and its mobile operating system MeeGo.
Taiwan's Micro-Star International showed two new Android-based tablets at Computex this week that appear much sleeker than the WindPad tablets it has unveiled in the past.
Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday broke its silence around its tablet strategy, announcing its first low-power chip designed for these devices.
Intel is adding a pair of new features to chips used in notebooks and netbooks, one of which will allow the devices to turn on within five to six seconds after being put in hibernation mode.
Intel's proposal of a new class of laptop, the Ultrabook, isn't an admission that it is losing the battle to put its microprocessors in tablets, according to a company executive.
Google has established a software engineering center in Taipei to work with Asian laptop makers on computers running its Chrome OS, a Google executive said Tuesday.
MSI is showing off new X-Slim laptops at Computex that are less than an inch thick, contain the latest Intel and AMD processors, and offer over eight hours of battery life. It is also showing new tablets running Windows or Android at the Taipei trade show, it announced this week.
Intel announced plans for a new class of thin and light laptops at the Computex trade show on Tuesday, its latest move to improve its competitiveness in the mobile computing market.
Sandisk has updated its line of solid-state drives (SSDs) for tablet and portable computers with models that feature higher performance.
Taiwan's Asustek Computer has previewed a smartphone-tablet PC combo device that seeks to bring together the strengths of both devices without completely duplicating the hardware.