Tablets Planet

Dell Latitude ST Tablet PC: The Ideal Mobile Solution for Business Pros?

Posted on 24. Oct, 2011 by Paul in Tablets

The Dell Latitude ST tablet will have an optional docking station with ports.

Dell isn’t looking to put any Windows slates on the market for regular consumers until Windows 8 is ready, but for their business customers they have other plans.

Like many other enterprise market players for PCs Dell is eager to launch a Windows 7 tablet PC for business users, who unlike consumers like to use Windows 7 slates. For their effort the folks at Dell have engineered a new slate named Dell Latitude ST, the tablet PC isn’t available yet but the company has already started to introduce it to business buyers in Malaysia with a video advertisement.

In their video Dell explains and gives visual examples of how their Latitude ST tablet PC can fit into a working professionals life style. The final line from the near two-minute commercial is, “The Ideal Mobile Solution for Business Professional” [describing the tablet]. However is the Dell Latitude ST tablet really the ideal solution for a mobile business pro?

According to Dell the new Latitude ST tablet features a Intel Atom processor, Windows 7, Microsoft Bitlocker, Kensington lock, USB port, SD card slot, HDMI port, and a LCD that features finger multi-touch and a stylus for input, and there are also front and rear-facing cameras for video conferencing (front) and taking photos (rear).

Now those specifications, sans the touchscreen and security features, are reminiscent of a netbook and that is worrying for me. Netbooks are slow and they’re anything but the ideal mobile solution for a business professional, a laptop (even in Dell’s own business notebook line) are a better buy than a netbook. In the commercial the Latitude ST isn’t stuttering in doing anything at all, that’s probably due to the screen activity being a dramatized or the tablet PC having an SSD installed –an SSD can give the illusion of a computer being fast if all you’re doing is opening and closing programs.

Dell hasn’t allowed anyone to play with their Latitude ST tablet, so we don’t have anywhere to turn for a real first-hand account of the performance for this tablet PC. With the release of this video, I believe we won’t be waiting much longer for Dell to announce the Latitude ST tablet and allow reporters to exam the new tablet PC.

A few months ago there was a roadmap for Dell’s tablets leaked online, in that roadmap a Windows 7 slate named Latitude ST was detailed. According to that old roadmap the Dell Latitude ST features a 10-inch HD (1366×768) touch LCD with active pen support, a 1.5 GHz Intel Atom Z670 (Oak Trail) processor, 2GB of RAM, an SSD (up to 128GB), integrated GPS, Accelerometer, Full HD 1080p output (via HDMI), dual cameras (front; 1.3MP; back: 3MP), 8 hours of battery life and Windows 7.

For the most part the leaked specifications match-up with what Dell shows-off in their commercial, though the Dell ad does neglect to mention the SSD storage. Given the accuracy of the info the release month listed on the roadmap might be real too, the “target launch” date for the Latitude ST was listed as October 2011.

Check Out Other Stories

• Dell’s New 10-inch Windows 7 Slate Will Have 8 Hours Battery Life?
• Motion Computing Intros The CL900 Windows 7 Slate, $899 To Get In The Door
• 15 Tablets That Will Be Released Soon, And Their Details

Tags: 1.3MP camera, 10-inch tablet, 3MP camera, 720p, active pen support, active stylus support, business, Dell, Dell Latitude ST, Dell tablet, dual cameras, enterprise tablet, GPS, hd, HDMI, intel, intel atom, Intel Atom Z670, intel oak trail, Microsoft, pen, solid state drive, SSD, Stylus, tablet, Tablet PC, Tablets, touch tablet, video, Windows, windows 7, windows 7 tablet, windows tablet