Quanta Redvale on display at Computex

Jun 1, 2010 10:25 GMT  ·  By

With all the leaks and rumors on the web over the past month, it was obvious that this year's Computex would be packed with tablets of all shapes and sizes. The ARM architecture has definitely been making rounds, though the most noteworthy development on that front was actually a set of Snapdragon dual-core chipsets. There seems to be no lack of competition though, as Intel's Moorestown processor, coupled with the MeeGo software platform, has also made an impression.

Apparently, even though NVIDIA said that the Intel smartphone chip wouldn't put up much of a fight, it left the folks over at Engadget with quite a favorable impression. Apparently, the 1.5GHz Moorestown CPU had no problems whatsoever when it was asked to play some videos in 720p quality. Granted, the slate itself wasn't perfect, as it had poor viewing angles, but overall, it looked promising, especially for a pre-alpha model.

The 10-inch Quanta Redvale, as it is called, is supposedly very light and thin and equipped with very responsive touchscreen controls. What stood out most, however, was the operating system, a tablet version of the MeeGo platform to be exact.

While based on the same software as the netbook OS, it is different by the fact that there are two distinct basic areas. The panel mode is a series of vertical panes, customizable with pictures, web bookmarks and social networking feeds. The simple mode is a basic grid of applications.

Unfortunately, as is the case with many promising news, this particular piece is accompanied by its own piece of 'bad news'. Though it was quite responsive and capable, or so it seemed to be, the fact remains that, as a pre-alpha prototype, the slate is far from being ready for mass production. The earliest it can be expected to start selling is the first quarter of the next year.