Also I have a few points to make:
*An atom should be orders of magnitude more powerful than a cortex a8.
*It looks like there’s another from facing webcam on the top left of the device http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/03/19mar10uowbrgs4df.jpg
* “the HP Slate looks so much like the iPad that it resembles a Chinese knock-off” the ipad, ipod touch, iphone are not the first slabs of metal with a touchscreen on their faces.
*You are NOT tied to windows 7, in fact you have the choice to install whichever OS you choose, the same cannot be said for the ipad(but why would you want another OS, anything cuppertino puts on there is perfect :p)
*HP is making its own custom interface for it, but you still have the option to use the windows interface if you need to do so.

HP better not forget to include three important keys. [Ctrl] [Alt] [Del]

Windows won’t keep working without them.

What a TANK.

@nabil2199:

-”Orders of magnitude” more powerful? I have serious doubts about that. It seems logical that the iPhone OS, scaled up modestly for the iPad and running on a much faster chip, will perform significantly better than Windows 7 throttled down to a netbook-class processor. And how’s the power consumption on that Atom processor compare to the A4?

-HP can make all the custom interfacing it wants, but unless it can automagically add multitouch support to *every* Windows 7 application, there’s no way that using an HP Slate will be as easy as using an iPad. The iPhone and iPad apps are written *assuming* multitouch as the primary user interface; Windows 7′s touch features are largely a way to *compensate* for the absence of the keyboard-and-mouse configuration for which the OS and its applications were designed. That’s not a trivial detail – it’s a crucial point in comparing the user experience between the two devices.

I’m sure there will be some people for whom a Win7 tablet is a better choice, but I find it difficult to question the idea that the iPad will provide a superior user experience.

Scott,

why the need for multi-touch for all apps? what if they have a keyboard dock like ipad does and then you can plug a mouse in and use it like a regular pc at home. I like the idea of a computer that is both a home pc and a portable touch web browser, media playing device. And with windows 7 on it, I think the slate will play many more video formats than the ipad will.

@Evan: I’m interested how you see Apple’s introduction of the iWorks apps for the iPad in this division of functions. The fact that they bothered to do it at all, and the time they spent demoing the apps at the announcement (far more than they spent on iBooks, despite the persistent meme that the iPad is intended as a “glorified ebook reader”), suggests to me that Apple is thinking of the iPad far more broadly than just a entertainment or content-consumption device.

@Dave: I think that solution would satisfy some people, but not too many, and not for long – if you’ve got a portable device that can run all of this Windows software, the obvious question is why it’s so difficult to use 95% of it when you’re not hooked up to a traditional keyboard-and-mouse scheme. Gaming on the Slate, in particular, is an area where that approach is going to run into problems.

The bottom line, for me, is that it simply doesn’t make sense to have a touch-primary input device if the majority of the software available for that device’s OS doesn’t work very well (or at all) with a touch-primary interface. The market, ultimately, will have the deciding word.

Using the Windows 7 with your fingers is going to be a pain; you can count on that. You’re using a touch-based device, there’s no better convenience than using an OS fully designed to take advantage of the touch screen.

A gimped netbook processor running Windows 7 is really no match for the A4 processor running an optimized OS. As for the slate, we already know what it means to run Windows 7 on a netbook, and it’s not exactly impressive.

On the other hand, there is good reason to believe that the A4 processor will be quite impressive. First reason would be the reviews given by people who got to play with the device for a bit, and the one thing they all expressed was that the device was surprisingly fast. “Fast, fast fast!” And hell, since my 2nd gen iPod Touch seems more graphically capable than a netbook (with respect to SIZE! not raw power) I think it’s safe to assume that these were not exaggerations. Besides, if you watch the demonstrations of the iPad’s graphical apps, you’ll wish your netbook can do that kind of graphics with similar smoothness.

Just my $2.

“But there’s just no way anyone is going to mistake Windows 7 for iPhone OS.”

You say that like it’s an inherently bad thing.

@Scott. Yes, the iWorks features are intriguing to me. For me the ability to create and edit, sometimes large, business documents is a must. What I am not sure about is how robust the iWorks word processor is. I also want the ability to create and display presentations — again, I don’t know how good the initial version of iPad will be at this.

I really don’t buy into the severe performance trade-offs that some people point out in making the tablet a full-featured device. I have no doubt that performance improvments will follow rapidly if the tablet form factor sells well. That’s why I am rooting for both Apple and HP (and others) to succeed with their initial tablets. I like the concept of the tablet and where it can go.

Mac’s are miso soup to Microsoft’s sweet and sour pork, elegance vs. vulgarity.

The iPad is just the iPhone on the inside. Your point please?

Chinese knock-off ?? hahahahahahaha hahahahahaha muwahahahahahahaha
Apple products are made in china, hahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha how dumb you are hahahahahahahahahaha