Clover Trail tablets pitched as workplace-friendly

28.09.2012
Some of the tablet makers at a launch event for Intel's emphasized the business smarts of their products as a way to distinguish them from Apple's market-leading iPad.

Dell, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, Acer and other vendors are all banking on the new version of Intel's Atom chip, officially called the Z2760, coupled with Microsoft's Windows 8 OS, to give them a fighting chance in a market dominated by Apple.

Intel invited PC makers to show off their Clover Trail Windows 8 tablets at a launch event Thursday in San Francisco. The new Atom is a dual-core processor that runs at up to 1.8GHz and offers a "full PC experience," according to Erik Reid, general manager of Intel's mobile client platforms group.

Clover Trail tablets will play up to 10 hours of video on a single charge and last up to three weeks in standby mode, he said. Some models will be only 8.5 millimeters thick, he said, a hair's breadth thinner than the iPad.

Taking on Apple will be tough, but emphasizing how Windows tablets fit well in an office environment is the best hope for PC makers, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.

"I don't know if it's going to be successful, but it's their best shot at success," he said.