Dell – Windows 8 priced to go

At a fairly dull CES, Dell has come up with one of the most interesting products.

• It is not very innovative nor is it sexy but it is cheap.
• In this market, a low price is a critical factor in terms of making a proposition to the cash strapped consumer.
• I am referring to the Dell Latitude 10 that offers a full version of Windows on a tablet that starts at $499.
• In order to make this price point, serious compromises have been made but these seem to mostly relate to media and graphics.
• The device has a 10.1inch 1366 x 768 LCD, Intel Atom 1.8Ghz dual core, 2GB RAM and 64GB solid state storage.
• In the grand scheme of things, that is not bad when comparing to other tablets that are available on the market.
• Although it is headlining at starting at $499 I could not find the device for less than $579 and this version has no media and is WiFi only.
• Adding 3G and LTE raises the price to $749 (still without media).
• This clearly is how Dell has reached the relevant price point.
• The devices Intel’s on-board graphics processing which means that games and video are not going to work well on this device.
• The derisible video codec support in Windows 8 can be fixed by using the free and excellent VLC player but because this decodes video in software, it is heavy on resources meaning that higher resolution videos could easily struggle to play well on this device.
• Video playback will also gobble power as there is no hardware based decoding to keep consumption down.
• This also means that graphically rich games could also be a problem on this device.
• However, this device is clearly aimed at the corporate user and as such, this may not be too much of a problem.
• The beauty of this device is that it’s a full Windows 8 device so all the legacy applications will run which should significantly increase its appeal.
• Measuring how this device fares in the market will be important to gauge how much of the slow take off Windows 8 is due to the devices being too expensive and how much because people just don’t like it.
• I expect this product to do reasonably well, given its price, but this is a drop in the ocean when it comes to the problems that Dell faces as the market for computing changes beyond recognition.
• I see Asustek and Smasung as the new giants of the PC space in a few years time.