The “dud” warnings were not all based on insignificant details, however, and the iPad does deserve some smacks for obvious weaknesses – such as having no webcam, doing no multitasking and being, in essence, a big iPhone.  Of all these shortcomings, the notion that one has to quit browsing to look up a phone number or send a quick e-mail is perhaps the most distressing, which is why multitasking was the first of the upgrade announcements that got the Apple fan community chatting (even before the first sale).

Where’s the iPad competition?

One reason the competition has been a bit quiet (or, at least, dispersed) is that both the public and the gadget makers call the iPad a lot of different things. This means a range of competitive strategies and no “critical mass” of focused opposition. Is the Kindle book-reader a competitor? Well, for e-book readers, perhaps. Is the Neofonie WePad overpriced, with too few Android offerings? What are the big boys – Dell, HP, Asus, Acer – doing in this product niche?

HP, for its part, sees the iPad’s screen resolution, Wi-Fi capability, long battery life and mid-range cost as strengths that its long-awaited Slate cannot match. On the other hand, its core hardware specs – CPU, hard drive, USB port, SD card slot, front- and rear-facing cameras, a screen that supports digitizer-based input – are clearly to the Slate’s advantage. Of course, it is the seamless, near-magical “Apple user experience” that is the joker in this high-tech deck of cards.

Spec comparison: iPad vs. competitor-like “Pad”

Like the Fusion Garage Joojoo and the WePad, Slate has a 1.6GHz Atom processor that is quite a bit beefier than Apple’s own A4 chip, and will take the HP unit from its Windows 7 Home Premium default installation to any of the many solid Linux OS packages. The USB 2 port and the two cameras are great, too, but Apple already planned for a camera (the spot for it is molded into the iPad case already) and has now addressed other shortcomings that its legions of fans pointed out en masse.

In fact, Apple has already announced plans for a smaller, 5- to 7-inch screen unit, to be focused more on output (music, Web, e-books) than input (typing especially). HP’s Slate has a smaller screen and a netbook standard resolution of 1024×600. Surprisingly for an on-the-go device, HP is coming up 50 percent short in battery life compared to the iPad. The Joojoo and WePad have decent battery life, but when Acer, Asus and some other heavyweights (Nokia? Samsung?) weigh in with their iPad-killers, they had better have more juice than the Slate if they want a good share of this new market.

How do you see the iPad integrating into the corporate environment? Do you plan on using one this year? We’d love to hear from you on this.

In the meantime, when you are faced with crunch time, like a new project with no available workstations, we are here to keep you moving forward. For everything from Mac Pro rentals to tablet pc rentals, and everything you need to attend or exhibit at a convention or conference, call or send an e-mail to our expert Account Executives today. If you know what you need, complete our Quick Rental Quote form now.

Ups and downs

The first thing you need to know is that the iPad is not a small MacBook in tablet form. It’s a big iPhone, except that the only kind of calling you can do is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) with WiFi and a tool like Skype. Lacking a webcam, of course, means voice only, no cool video chats. The unit will run all the iPhone Apps, although it will have its own Apple store.

It’s not a Kindle-killer, either. Amazon’s one-trick pony is perfect for the one trick it does – let you read, even in direct sunlight, with its e-ink technology. When Amazon did its research, it discovered that having color, WiFi, a browser and lots of other doohickeys interrupted people’s concentration on reading. Plus, the iPad has perhaps 8-10 hours of battery time, whereas the Kindle and the Sony e-book readers go 150-200 hours on a charge.

The specs

The specifications are at least as interesting for what is missing as what is there. Powered by a special, Apple-designed, 1GHz A4 chip built by PA Semiconductor, the iPad comes with 16, 32 or 64GB of solid state flash storage, but there is no separate graphics chip, so no multitasking – you can do one thing at a time. The color screen is 9.7 inches, but it won’t display most of the video on the Web (except YouTube) because there is no Flash support. With all the Flash on the Internet, this is a total head-scratcher. Neither is there a USB port, just the single Dock Connector, which accommodate special (and, ahem, separately priced) adapters for a USB connection or an SD card reader.

What it does have is: WiFi in the latest 802.11b/g/n variety; Bluetooth, so you can use a wireless keyboard, at least if you’re at a table, instead of the on-screen iPhone-y keyboard; and a 3G version coming out a month after the base model. There’s also a microphone, speaker, headphone jack, digital compass, a few sensors (light, accelerometer, proximity) and A-GPS, “Assisted GPS.”

Bottom line

Just a tad smaller than a regular magazine and weighing 1.5 pounds, the iPad is hardly a shirtpocket take-along. It needs a case so you won’t scratch it, and a data plan with AT&T so you can use the WiFi or 3G. What remains to be seen is, Who will buy this thing? Apple fans with iPhones already shell out to AT&T, so it’s hard to believe they’ll double their monthly bill for a larger iPhone with little added functionality. MacBook Pro rentals at CRE won’t be threatened, since the iPad doesn’t run any Mac software. People who are PC-centric and don’t like Apple in the first place are hardly going to rush out to buy this device, either.

The iPad appears to a number of observers to be the first pure entertainment play from Apple since the iPod. It is not a productivity enhancer, not easy to use as a phone or book reader, has a closed platform that may hinder third-party development and costs from $500 to over $800 in a somewhat bizarre pricing structure. It just may be that Apple has made an expensive toy for jetsetters and tech collectors, but if you see the “Steve Jobs magic” at work again, post a comment and let us know!

In the meantime, for true Apple productivity, CRE has the Mac Pro rentals and laptops, along with convention technology and everything else you need from Apple, H-P and other companies. From office equipment to Audience Response System rentals, our Account Executives have the expertise and the equipment to help you get the job done. Call, send an e-mail or fill out the Quick Rental Quote form and we’ll get right on it for you.

There’s no question about it. We’re going to need some new product names or acronyms, and soon. Taiwanese computer maker Asus is set to debut its Eee PC T91 touch-screen convertible-tablet netbook laptop computer, and it’s unlikely tech scribes will want to write that verbose description for very long. Although the components are made of plastic, metal and silicon instead of potatoes, perhaps we can dub it the EBOC (“Everything and a Bag Of Chips”).

Tablet PCs have been around as long as laptops, although they have never quite caught on the way that a few score marketing departments thought they would. Computer makers are beginning to get interested in the form factor again—the market is presently dominated by Motion Computing, Lenovo, Fujitsu, HP-Compaq, Toshiba and just a few others—following the raging success of light, web-centric netbooks. The entry point remains very accommodating, too, with HP-Compaq’s TC1100 at a street price under $600. Top-of-the-line tablets can cost up to five times as much, depending on how much internal zing and external bling is required.

Seems a solid niche

It would seem that the tablet PC should have a very solid niche for certain functions and activities. It’s a no-brainer, or should be, for purchasing and stores clerks, various mobile workers and medical professionals. For all of these people—and anyone else that will attend one, two or 20 conferences, conventions, seminars or training sessions every year—the combination of portability, first-rate handwriting recognition and WiFi is right on target. In fact, the handwriting recognition in Windows XP is downright crude compared to the “ink handling system” of the Windows Tablet OS.

For its promoters, it’s always the “next year” or the “next great product intro” that is finally going to lift the tablet PC off the launching pad that it’s been sitting on since its debut. For some of its intended demographic, it may have waited too long, as low-end, no-wireless-needed note-takers can now get into “digital ink” for just about $100. With such products as the Adesso CyberPad, one can transfer handwritten notes and graphics to the PC, converting the handwriting to text and the doodles into vector or bitmap graphics. A number of different digital ink solutions are just now percolating up into the market.

A “green convention” winner

The tablet PC today is, despite its slow acceptance in some circles, an important ingredient in the formula for “green conventions.” An astonishing amount of paper, ink, time, energy and money goes into printing and disseminating millions of convention brochures, programs, maps, registration forms and (of course) dinner menus, year after year. There is a better way.

A convention strategized around wireless PCs—from basic netbooks at a minimum, to tablet PCs with their note-taking abilities as the preferred unit—can save trees, reduce pollution and minimize waste. Perhaps this really is “the year” that the tablet PC breaks through a low-price barrier and catches on with consumers. Perhaps these new tablet-slash-netbook products like the Eee PC T91 really are the ones that will do that. As for what to call them—TabBooks, NetTabs, Booklets, whatever—we’ll leave that to the marketing departments, but if you have a good idea, drop us a line!