Samsung slate PC coming later this year

Samsung will be the latest to jump on the tablet PC bandwagon.

The Korean electronics company said at a technology forum in Singapore Monday that it will sell a slate-like device starting in the second half of this year, according to a report in APC Magazine. Samsung's slate will be intended for the consumer market, though details like size, operating system, and other tech specifications were not revealed.

The company did say that its slate will be faster and more powerful than that other tablet everyone is talking about, the iPad, which a Samsung executive called "a glorified MID (mobile Internet device)."

"A lot of companies have played in the MID market and done a very average job and the iPad, which is a glorified MID, just takes that to the next level," Philip Newton, director of Samsung Australia's IT division, told APC Magazine. "The problems I see with the iPad are its processing power and (lack of) connectivity to a certain extent."

"From my point of view, the iPad is essentially an e-book reader with wireless connectivity but no inputs and outputs," Newton said. "I do feel that that slate-type platform has legs but I think the legs need to be far more powerful, for example an Atom-based product which has far greater flexibility, not to mention inputs and outputs. This has more potential than an iPad."

Samsung's slate will have a docking station, so that it can be used as a primary device at home, and taken on the road as a mobile PC.

While Samsung only began selling laptops in the U.S. market beginning in 2008, the company has been more broadly experimenting with mobile computers for longer. In 2006, the companyjoined the ultramobile PC push with its Q1, a business-user-focused tablet that largely failed.