Tegatech signs Samsung tablet deal

Tablet PC specialist distributor Tegatech has signed an agreement to distribute Samsung's Q1 Ultra Mobile PC to Australian resellers.

The Q1 UMPCs were part of an initiative announced by Microsoft in March to develop lighweight, small form-factor ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs).

Several OEMs such as Founder Electronics and Samsung jumped on Microsoft's 'Origami' project, developing small UMPCs that feature a 7-inch screen and let users choose between a touch stylus, QWERTY or traditional keyboard.

Hugo Ortega, CEO at Tegatech told CRN that the ultra mobile PCs such as the Samsung Q1 cost less than half the price of traditional tablet PC products that have been available in the marketplace.

Samsung has removed the WACOM 'active digitiser' screen and replaced it with a generic touch screen, effectively helping to reduce the cost down to $1699 (retail). He said that traditional larger Tablet PCs could cost up to $4500 (retail).

For the past 18 months, Tegatech has been focusing solely on this market and touts itself as the only Tablet PC-specific distributor in Australia and New Zealand.

It also signed an agreement to distribute Fujitsu's Tablet range and is an agent for Raon Digital's Vega ultra mobile product.

Tegatech would also be stocking forthcoming ultra mobile products manufactured by ASUS and Motion Computing, Ortega said.

ASUS would be releasing an R1 convertible Tablet and RH1 UMPC in October, he said.

Microsoft has developed software for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 and a few editions of Vista that incorporate the Tablet PC Windows software.

Ortega said that in the past, the slow takeup of Tablet PCs was due to the fact that hardware was sluggish, but this was no longer the case.

"Resellers were also impatient with the technology and didn't have a high tolerance level," he said.

The Samsung Q1 ships with an Intel 900Mhz processor, up to 1GB of memory, a 7 inch LCD screen, Intel HD audio, a 40GB hard drive and 10/100 Ethernet connectivity.