14 DAY TRIAL // In a market that is clearly oriented towards netbooks and the latest Intel Centrino 2 portable computer systems, Gigabyte is offering a tablet PC that is designed to be part of the low-power notebooks. The M192 was announced last month during the Computex show, held in Taipei, but has not seen yet its fair share of pricing details. At least, not until now it hasn't.
Even now, details are rather sketchy as we have to make do only with a post on the Taiwanese UMPC Fever website. According to it, the new Gigabyte M192 tablet PC will be available for as much as $656. This version will include a Windows Vista operating system, 1GB of RAM, WiFi and Bluetooth. A relatively similar version, which will be based on Windows XP, will come $36 cheaper than the Vista version. An even lower priced model, the M912M, will cost only $556, but will not integrate Bluetooth and will offer a lower resolution (1024 by 600), compared with the 1800 x 768 on the first two.
No details are available on when this netbook will hit store shelves but, when they do become public knowledge, you will at least get a general idea on the netbook's official price tag. Interestingly enough, as already mentioned, the Taiwanese manufacturer has decided to bring its new low-power tablet PC in three different versions. However, the differences between all three aren't that many since, in fact, all versions are based on the same configuration as the standard model.
What this actually means is that you will be dealing with an Intel Atom processor, up to 1GB of RAM memory and up to 250GB of storage space on a 2.5-inch SATA HDD. Unlike its other Atom-based competitors, this computer can easily be considered a tablet PC version of a netbook. And that's mainly because it sports a touchscreen 8.9-inch LCD panel and weighs a mere 1.2 kg.