UltraMobileGeek Live from CES: Meeting with TabletKiosk

Gail Levy, Director of Marketing at TabletKiosk, sat down with myself and Scott Watson of TabletGEAR.com. Scott's a great guy, by the way. Certainly a person who should be interfacing with these marketing folks. I also like his taste in digital cameras: We have the same Exilim.

It's hard for me to properly format pictures while on the road so I will be attaching the images from this story to a Picasa web album until I get back to Phoenix and can set them up properly.

The excitement of that meeting:
TabletKiosk's new Sahara. It's a slate form factor tablet, but not an ultra-mobile. There will be three varieties:

• Celeron with touch only
• Core Duo with touch only
• Core Duo with an active digitizer.

The great feature set: Full array of laptop ports, including VGA, firewire, USB, Ethernet, modem, and (woot!) a PC card slot on the top edge. The top placement of the card slot is perfect for EV-DO and HSDPA cards.

I saw this thing running Vista Aero Glass and it was SLICK. These aren't fully to market yet, but they look quite exciting. I am sure Scott will have a full post on these devices, so I suggest everyone watch TabletGEAR.com for this. There's also a ruggedized Sahara tablet coming out. There are several pictures in the Picasa album. Again: I am sure TabletGEAR will have more on that. I am not just a tablet geek: I'm an UltraMobileGeek! What's new in that line?

They wouldn't let me take it home... yet.

First: The LONG awaited eo v7110 dock. It's there. It's real. It works. It'll be to market very fast (but I did not get an exact date.) As I discussed in a post in OrigamiProject.com, the delays in manufacturing forced TabletKiosk to make a decision to make with the v7110 dock: They could drop the offering, knowing that a dock released so late for a first generation product would not likely turn a profit. Alternately, they could produce the dock on their own and show loyalty to their early-adopter customer base. They chose the latter, and this makes me happy.

Also, the long-rumored eo v7110 port replicator was there. I did not try it out, but it looks like something that'd be handy for presentations and other UMPC tasks. I will post full specs on that soon.

UMPCs gone rugged!

We got to see a mock-up of a new ruggedized UMPC from TabletKiosk. It is drop, dust, and drizzle resistant (but not submersible, of course) and will have a Via C7M 1.2 GHz CPU. Gail mentioned that TabletKiosk often goes for the industrial market but have noticed that UMPCs get a lot more wear and tear than many other types of machine. The device itself is smaller but still retains the seven inch screen. The buttons on the left will be removed, but the joystick style pointer is retained and a fingerprint reader and webcam will be added. The battery that protrudes out of the back will be the standard battery.


eo i7200 series owners will be happy: They redesigned the bump case so it sits properly in the dock. It's simply beautiful. Look for them in the web album.

I asked about the future of Vista Aero Glass. It may not be possible until more powerful, LOW POWER graphics chipsets are available. Also, the market simply does not push for Aero Glass on ultra-mobile PCs. After playing with a machine on which Glass worked, I see the point. It's pretty, but not a big deal.

My conclusion of this interview is that TabletKiosk has a firm dedication to the slate form factor tablet computers, especially ultra-mobiles. When they can't meet their user or market demands with their existing product line, they expand the line. They listen to what users want for accesssories and hunt down partners or provide them in-house. This is a stark contrast to the many false starts that other innovative form factors have seen over the years. Slate tablets are here to stay and TabletKiosk has the experience, technology partnerships, and ear for customer needs to lead the market.

Incidentally, all UltraMobileGeek blog posts from CES will be from my eo. I did not bring a laptop.