LBook to Launch T9 Multitouch Tablet [8.9-In Touchscreen Display, Intel Atom Processor, 2GB RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G & Windows 7; $350 in March 2010]

The year of the tablet is upon us! Earth will be flooded by tablets in 2010 and LBook doesn’t want to miss out on the action. The company, previously used to selling eBook devices is going to launch the T9 tablet in March 2010 for $350.

I have this complete and utter deja-vu feeling! Rewind back to 2008 and you’re going to remember how everyone in the computer business decided that netbooks was the way to go after seeing Asus success at selling the first Eee PCs. By now everyone is capable of making a netbook and they all bring similar features to their customers. Sure there are lots of netbooks that stand out from the crowd but I’m not trying to make a point about quality issues here.

This year we heard countless rumors about the Apple tablet. Officially denied by Cupertino, the tablet is closer and closer to an official launch. The new Apple computer should be available in 2010 and everyone expects Steve Jobs to announce it early next year. And those rumors related to Apple’s new toy have been growing and growing to the point where its main competitors have decided to also develop tablet PCs. We’ve seen Microsoft leak details about its Windows 7-powered tablet, the Courier, but things have not stopped there. HP is bringing its TouchSmart technology to laptops and we should expect all the other major players try to come up with a tablet product capable to compete against Apple’s and Microsoft’s finest.

Therefore we shouldn’t be surprised to see small manufacturers like LBook trying to pitch similar products in 2010. The T9 will be an 8.9-inch multitouch tablet featuring an Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, a 120GB hard-drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity, a 4-hour battery, integrated webcam, USB ports, multicard reader and Windows 7 running in the background. Did we just go through the future average tablet portrait? Are we to expect tablets to replace current netbooks? Won’t we miss physical keyboards? We’ll be able to answer all these questions once we’ve seen Apple’s vision of the tablet as it looks like Apple will set the trend in this tablet business too.