Paceblade jumps gun with Transmeta Tablet PC

The Pacebook Tablet has a 12.1-inch LCD display supporting XGA resolution, uses an 867MHz Crusoe chip, comes with a 20GB hard drive, Firewire, two USB ports, and a 10/100Mbps Ethernet adaptor as well as a 56K modem.

The wireless keyboard allows regular typing although the Pacebook also includes an on screen keyboard, while the screen can be used in landscape or portrait mode.

The firm gave no details of pricing but the unit is Microsoft compliant and as well as acting as a Tablet PC can also be used in desktop or notebook configurations.

The unit comes with the Pacebook Pen, an MS compliant digitiser and a resistive touchscreen, and includes digital ink and handwriting recognition.

Expect a deluge of other Tablet PCs on November 7th. Although some units, such as the Acer C102T, is already for sale at the German Media Markt site. This uses a Pentium III-M running at 800MHz, comes with 256MB memory, weighs 1.4KG, has a 10.4-inch TFT screen and costs a staggeringly cheap €2500 or $2500, near enough.

Acer is confident we'll be rushing out in droves to buy these -- as we reported earlier this week. µ