CES: Steve Ballmer Offers Briefest Glimpse of HP’s Upcoming Tablet

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer offered a very brief glimpse of Hewlett-Packard’s upcoming tablet during his pre-CES keynote on Wednesday night. An appearance by the HP tablet was the most-anticipated part of his keynote because the device will likely go head-to-head with Apple’s upcoming slate, if and when it is released.

Although it was on stage at the Las Vegas Hilton for only a couple of minutes, the HP Tablet looks thin and polished — hardware wise anyway. Ballmer showed it running Windows 7 and Amazon’s Kindle for the PC software.

“You can flip through pages with your finger,” he said, flipping through pages with his finger. “And you can buy content from Amazon right within the app.”

He then proceeded to show a video running on the tablet, but was briefly frustrated when he couldn’t hit the tiny buttons on screen with his fingers. “Ooops,” he said after trying a couple of times. He eventually got it to play. Microsoft hasn’t yet optimized the tablet’s UI for big chubby fingers.

He didn’t mention the tablet’s name, pricing or ship date. He simply said, “It’s a beautiful little product” and it will be shipping “later this year.”

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It appears to have a 10-inch screen and is very thin. It has no visible buttons on the top surface. The HP tablet will be one of the major products from a big-name manufacturer to compete with Apple’s device, which will likely be unveiled at a special media event in San Francisco on January 27.

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Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, Apple Tablet, News |

Charli
reading all the blogs it seemed like they copied the keynote style from Jobs, which is a tad sad.
it will be interesting to see if Apple confirms an event for this month and what is announced.
Mattzook
The more they try to “steal Apple’s thunder”, the more attention, more free hype, and more free publicity will be given for Apple’s upcoming tablet/slate.
Apple is already getting free worldwide advertising, free exposure, and free publicity for it’s slate/tablet… even tho the item has not been announced yet. LOL
MSfailtage
Yet another failure to MS’s list. Well Played Ballmer.
IcyFog
In the close-up photo it looks like that device is running XP. Or am I mistaken?
Mel
Surely no coincidence that the cover of the book shows someone holding an apple.
GGeek
@ IcyFog – The Start button is the Windows logo, so it’s not XP.
As for this tablet, HP has produced several “premium” touch screen products in the last couple of years, so at the very least, they probably have worked out some of the major hardware kinks. And 7 is supposedly optimized for portable hardware, so this could be a decent, competitive product. I’m curious about its specs and battery life.
Makes me even more excited to see what Apple has come up with!
Carl
“Surely no coincidence that the cover of the book shows someone holding an apple.”
We spotted and with the importance of this showcase SURELY somebody should have foreseen Ballmer holding an “Apple device” and chosen an alternative book………hilarious……..
Mattzook
He really does look like a Monkey Boy.
Porkchop1234
I dunno, don’t get me wrong, from what I see in the pic the tablet looks sleek slim and generally has a well polished form factor. The thing that draws red flags for me is its a HP product and in the past most of the HP products I’ve dealt with (mostly laptops) have been utter garbage. One question I have about the new HP tablet is although I’m confident that windows 7 will do an alright job on the tablet will its OS be cluttered up with the crappy bloatware that HP is infamous for (I despise bloatware)?
I’ll have to wait till both products are out and I can demo them before I render a final judgment but I’m still more interested in Apples tablet then in HP’s.
Joseph
LOL! Another great demo of MS vaporware by Steve Ballmer. He’s like the idiot everyone knows who when he hears someone tell an interesting story or talk about an interesting experience, he tries to boast about his even MORE INTERESTING story or experience, which is never interesting at all. Will he ever learn to STFU until MS actually has a product ready to ship? Or better, will MS shareholders ever wake up and fire him? With the exception of the Xbox, MS has been a total failure by virtually any measure during his time as CEO.
Paul
All of a sudden Tablets are hot. Who would have thought. No one gave a crap until the Apple rumors started heating up.
Steven
Recovering from an 8 week relapse into opiet addiction after 8 years of recovery, I finally have the energy to tune back into the cult and I see Ballmer in a (good Godly) bright red sweater holding an HP tablet with an apple on the front screen. WTF? I need more help than I thought.
Steven
@ Joseph;
People up here in the NW are not too bright man (not really–just in Redmond). It’s all the liquid sunshine we get. We rust…never tan-know that when you look at Ballmer. Luckily, Apple snagged me 3 years ago and I’ve never turned back.
joe
Is ballmer Jobs’ bastard brother ?
IcyFog
The red flags for me is that it runs Windows, and that Microsoft supports it.
Until HP and other computer manufacturers branch out, support operating systems other than what that Redmond corporation produces, and give consumers a real choice; I am not interested.
Ictus75
That photo is so perfect: Ballmer’s 2 hands holding up a tablet device with an image of 2 hands holding up an Apple – is he subliminally presenting the Apple Slate to the world????
paarry
i will prefer to buy MS tablet than , apple tablet. I am just fade up with arrogance from apple hardcore followers.
Charli
i want to know about price, about battery, about content, about connectivity (including 3g v wifi v both, locked, unlocked, CDMA v GSM v Both)
also, folks, yeah it’s an Apple but worse, they are pimping using Twilight. THE franchise of the moment. attempting some subliminal ‘this is also cool’ perhaps.
trouble is that all the Twilight Trio are big and open iphone fans and could probably be persuaded to turn out at Apple’s release for travel costs and a free whatever it is called. Score even one of them and it will be hit city when the, I believe they are called, Twi-Hards get the links in their daily google alerts (you know they have them, they are that obsessed). And then it will be “mommy I want a tablet” left and right. Money in the bank.