Not-news: Dell's planning on making a Windows 8 tablet, and you can thank Microsoft's touch-based operating system for that one. A multi-touch tablet is the best way to use the poke-able, prod-able, and pinch-able OS on a mobile device, after all. It's not nearly as fun if you can only tap one element of the Windows 8 Metro UI at a time.
As for the exact specifications of Dell's big Windows 8 debut device, the website Neowin just recently got its hands on an alleged leak of the Latitude 10 tablet's parts and pieces. Spoiler: It's an entry-level laptop in a tablet form. And while the system's price hasn't leaked out, odds are good that you'll have to fork over a bit more to enjoy the conveniences of a $300 laptop as a thinner, rectangular digital panel.
Here are the raw specs: As of right now, the tablet's expect to come packing a 32-nanometer, dual-core Intel Clover Trail processor – no CPU clock speeds listed, unfortunately. The chip's potential to draw power is the more interesting bit anyway, as Clover Trail has been designed to better compete against more battery-friendly ARM tablets.
Expectations are that Clover Trail, in general, should be able to compete toe-to-toe against the best of the ARM processors thus far, Qualcomm's Krait. And don't forget the elephant in the tablet room: Intel chips will be able to fully run existing x86 and x64 applications. ARM-based Windows 8 tablets will only be able to run a limited Windows 8 experience, given that the chips can only run Windows 8's Metro apps.
"[Windows on ARM] does not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86/64 desktop apps," wrote Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky in a February blog post.
Back to Dell. The Latitude 10 is expected to come with two gigabytes of DDR2-800 memory, double the minimum requirements for the 32-bit version of Windows 8 (and equal those for Windows 8's 64-bit version). The laptop's 10.1-inch display will support a resolution of 1366 by 768 and allegedly throw an optional stylus into the multi-touch mix. Storage will run up to 128 gigabytes via an included solid-state drive.
Perhaps the tablet's most eye-opening feature – for tablets, at least – is that it'll allegedly support swappable batteries. It's unclear whether the Latitude 10 will actually ship with two batteries or whether purchasers will have to buy the second one after the fact, but the thought is that users will be able to quickly switch between a smaller battery that grants approximately 6 to 8 hours of life or a larger battery that can keep the tablet alive for anywhere from 10 to 12 hours.
Dell's Latitude 10 is expected to ship around November or so, and odds are good that the aforementioned specifications represent just one of a few tablets or configurations Dell might throw into the Windows 8 mobile mix by then.
For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).
