HP and Microsoft Tablet revealed at CES

We’ve all been hearing all about Apple’s new iSlate for a while and perhaps we’ve forgotten that there are other companies out there who might produce a tablet or two.

Take Microsoft and Hewlett Packard for example, it seems they may have been attempting to steal a little bit of Apple’s thunder by revealing details of their own version of the slate computer at the CES.

“It’s a beautiful little product” said Steve Ballmer from Microsoft who had demonstrated the Windows 7 Touch Screen device in front of thousands of eager techie enthusiasts and geeks at the event.

He of course was also bragging about Windows 7 stating that it was “The biggest hit of the year” and that “Windows 7 is by far the fastest selling operating system in history”.

Anyway, we were talking about the tablet and apparently the Hewlett Packard tablet will be available for sale sometime later this year.

Not everyone was particularly enamoured with it though.

“What we saw confirmed my worst suspicions that this is your standard Microsoft software in slate form” said Paul Miller to BBC news.

For those who don’t know, Paul Miller is the Senior Associate editor of the technology website Engadget.

“It’s an interesting product in itself but Microsoft could have gone further. It’s not anything new in terms of software and that is what you really need to make a device like this make people want to buy it.”

So do we want to buy it?

Well I suppose we don’t know until we see what the Apple Tablet is like, I mean we’ve all been waiting for that new device and anything that tries to make an appearance before that might just not get as much attention as it deserves.

There’s always the feeling that Apple might come up with something better so we’d better not get too excited until we’ve seen what they have to offer, even though so far they’ve not even acknowledged that they’re producing a new tablet.

“Apple tends to change the game and this Microsoft/HP tablet didn’t blow them out of the water” said Dean Takahashi of tech blog VentureBeat.com

“How successful it will be is up in the air, but HP is the biggest technology company in the world and can certainly put a lot of muscle behind the device” Takahashi told BBC News.

Yep things are definitely hotting up; we were expecting 2010 to be the year of the tablet so we’re really getting off to a flying start.