Samsung is really set on making this stylus thing work. The new Series 5 and Series 7 Slate PCs look pretty good — the versions we saw last week weren’t final — but they might have a little catching up to do as well.
The Series 5 and 7 look totally fine, by most standards. Pretty good, actually. They’re well-thought-out machines that are pretty well designed. But it feels like that just won’t be enough for the coming onslaught of Windows 8 gear. The new Vaio Duo looks beautiful, and other converters, like the Lenovo Yoga are already out there looking amazing. So while these are pretty good, we hope that gets bumped up to pretty great by the time they launch, or it could get ugly for Samsung.
The Series 7 Slate will have a 11.6-inch 1920×1080 display and weigh 857 grams with dimensions of 11.6 inches x 7.2 inches x 0.5 inches, 4GB of RAM, and come with an Intel Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor. The Series 5 will have the same 11.6-inch display, but at 1366×760 resolution. It will also have an ATOM Z2760 processor instead of a Core series, and half the RAM and storage at 2GB and 64GB. It’s a little lighter and thinner too, at 748 grams and 0.38 inches thick.
The Series 7 costs $US1200, while the Series 5 is available for $US750 with the keyboard dock, and $US650 without it. We’ll bring you local pricing details as soon as they become available.