14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has already outlined its overall tactic for releasing newer and better mobile processors, but it appears there are other plans and projects in motion, such as the Keeley Lake convertible tablet design.
The media slate market may be just over a year old, but convertible tablet PCs have been around for quite a bit longer.
In fact, before purely touch-based slates even debuted, convertible ones with PC-like feature sets were used in healthcare and other industrial segments.
Understandably, this sort of product has not disappeared, and Intel now made an official announcement in which it reveals one of the plans it has for this field.
Apparently, the Santa Clara, California-based company figured that convertible tablets could do with a design overhaul.
Thus it was that the “Keeley Lake” concept of the above sort of machines, as well as netbooks, with slimmer form factors, among other things, was born.
The case shouldn't be thicker than 17 to 20 mm, while the display will not just be free of the 10.1-inch size restriction, but also equipped with multi-touch capabilities.
For those that need a reminder, today's netbooks based on Intel CPUs are restricted to a screen size of 10.1 inches at most, so that they may remain easy to distinguish from all other laptops.
The Keeley Lake will use Cedar Trail processors, which were revealed, some time ago, to come with a more flexible range of allowed form factors.
It should also be noted that the same company announced it would speed up development of Atom CPUs, and since Cedar Trail will be the first 32nm generation, Keeley Lake netbooks and convertible laptops/tablets might be revealed before the year is out, or at least at CES 2012 (a prototype is already on display at Computex).
Meanwhile, OEMs are said to be already experimenting with the Windows, Chrome OS, Android and MeeGo-capable platform.