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Now this is a rumor that has LEGS! Even though there is NO CONFIRMATION AT ALL from Apple, the industry is taking for granted that Apple’s Giant iPod Netbook Thingie (Now dubbed by popular acclaim the Apple Tablet) will be a reality, will be a reality SOON, and will be wildly successful. Based on those three shots in the dark, there is a wave of Tablet netbooks and notebooks coming.

Digitimes, our favorite Taiwanese hardware rumor mill, is reporting that Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell (already reported here by our resident TabletPC expert ctitanic) and Micro-Star International (MSI) are all scrambling to get new tablet PCs out early in 2010. All seem to be in around-abouts the 10 inch screen size that the Apple tablet is said to sport.

Tablets netbooks also seem destined to be some of the first appearances of Intel’s successor to the Diamondville Atom platform, Pinetrail. The chipset will be used by MSI in a 10-inch tablet netbook slated to debut in early 2010 and by a Tablet netbook from HP due in April or May 2010 (THAT rumor has me a bit excited).

Tablet netbooks have already been released by Gigabyte and Asus (among others) with more models on the way from each to take advantage of Windows 7 touch features.

Digitimes is defining Tablet PCs as encompassing full size Tablet notebooks, 10 inch or less Tablet netbooks and 4- to 6-inch touchscreen MIDs. If the Apple Tablet enjoys iPhone/iPod Touch level success and acceptance and if Windows 7 is as touch-friendly as has been claimed, we could rapidly be finding touchscreen and tablet notebooks to be the norm rather then the exception.

Zealot (469 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).