Hewlett-Packard's new "touch screen" tablet PC is ideal for small business users, as well as consumers, one of its creators has claimed.
While touted as a consumer entertainment notebook at its launch last week in South Korea, the Pavilion tx1000 (pictured right) still delivers the tablet functionality that SMB's required. As well it boasts a "twist and touch" 12.1 inch widescreen display, and uses "passive touch-screen technology" borrowed from HP's iPAQ PDA line.
In an interview with ZDNet Australia, Stacy Wolff, director of Notebook Design for HP's Personal Systems Group, described the tx1000 as "the Tablet PC, simplified".
"It's really a PC with touch technology which just happens to be in a notebook or tablet form factor. When you get into the Tablet PC with digitisers and all that stuff you ... you start to get into unique applications, and it requires a little bit more of an experienced user to understand that technology."
"But if we look at what most people do in the small to medium business market it's quick notes, annotating a PowerPoint slide and things like that, and a simple touch screen gives you that capability."
"I don't think you'll see enterprise customers (buying the tx1000) but I believe you'll definitely see the small office, some medium-sized businesses and home offices acquiring this, because of the price point and tablet functionality it delivers.
"And in the end, these businesspeople are also consumers, so they'll buy at retail the solution which they believe suits them," Wolff said.
The tx1000 is expected to hit the local market in March or April, with pricing still to be set. However, HP said the base model -- with an AMD Turion 64 Mobile 2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and Vista Home Premium -- will sell for US$1,299 when it touches down stateside at the end of February.
David Flynn travelled to Seoul as a guest of HP.
