ViewSonic unveiled a 10-inch tablet running both Android and Windows on Intel’s newest Atom processor, Oak Trail, at the Computex trade show.
The ViewPad 10Pro runs Android 2.2 and Windows 7 Professional, and users can switch between the two by tapping an icon on the display. ViewSonic staff expect buyers to use Windows primarily for work because of the greater number of business applications available for that platform.
The device will be priced between US$699 and US$799 when it goes on sale in Taiwan in June, Viewsonic said. The company has yet to decide when the device will be sold in other countries.
The ViewPad 10Pro weighs 800 grams, heavier than Apple’s iPad 2 at around 600 grams. ViewSonic showed it in a news briefing at the Computex trade show in Taipei on Monday.
It will be one of the first tablets to use Intel’s Oak Trail chips, which were unveiled in April. Apple, Motorola and most other tablet makers today are using processors produced by ARM because they are considered more power-efficient.
Oak Trail, more formally known as the Atom Z670, is designed to give long battery life to tablets, something Intel believes will help the company grab a bigger share of the market for tablet chips.
Intel said in April that its customers are designing 35 tablets using the chip, with some of those going on sale as early as May. Other tablets running Intel’s Oak Trail processor are also expected to be shown at Computex this week.
ViewSonic also showed off a tablet with a 7-inch screen, the ViewPad 7x. It runs Android 3.0 on a dual-core NVidia Tegra 2 processor and weighs only 380 grams. The company plans to first