Hanvon Takes On Apple In Dramatic Press Conference [New Hanvon Tablet Looks Okay, But Drew All The News With Literal Apple Bashing]

Posted on TFTS by Kevin Schram on Thursday, 20. May 2010 under: PCs, Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets

We’ve seen a few of these tablets coming out of Asia. Some of them are interesting, but they usually get little attention here in the West. However, this time, the Hanvon tablet is getting a lot of attention on major tech blogs – why? Because at the press unveiling, Hanvon execs smashed an Apple made of ice.

The unveiling definitely had more theatrics than a usual product unveiling here, what with techno music, the Apple smashing, the new Hanvon TouchPad B10s rising from the ground slowly like King Kong, and models walking the tablets up and down a runway.

Back to the tablet itself, it actually doesn’t look that bad. Here are the official specs.

Intel ULV743 at 1.3GHz
2GB RAM
Intel GMA integrated graphics
10-inch multi-touch display
Windows 7 Home Premium
250GB HDD
Webcam, Bluetooth, HDMI, VGA, USB

At first glance, the tablet looks pretty attractive, as it looks to be a different screen ratio than the iPad. Of course, unlike the iPad, it’s going with a x86 processor and a full-desktop operating system. We’ve seen these on tablets for the last 10 years and they haven’t sold well.

Hanvon seems pretty confident that they’ll beat Apple, and in Asia, they probably will. The iPhone and App Stores sales have been mediocre in China. In a country that loves using pirated software – a Win7 tablet may be more appealing to them.

Following Hanvon’s usual business model, they’ll probably sell this thing locally in China under their own name, then shop it around to big Western manufacturers, who, if willing, will sell the thing in North America/Europe under their own name, with Hanvon doing the OEM manufacturing. (So it could end up as the “Dell Edge” or “HP Titan” or something like that).

No release date announced. As for pricing, Hanvon said it will be in the €500 ($618) range.

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