Acer Iconia M500 tablet shows Intel was serious about MeeGo

Intel bragged yesterday about more than 30 tablets coming with its mobile Atom chipset over the coming months, and the count is slowly starting to pile up. Intel gear with Microsoft on it was easy to guess, and Android 3.0 Honeycomb wasn't hard either, given the recent agreement between Google and Intel.

MeeGo, however, turned out Intel's wild card at Computex 2011. After Asus showed its Eee PC X101 ultrathin $200 netbook with MeeGo, now a 10" Acer Iconia M500 pops up, and a full-blown tablet at that. Looks are similar to the Android-powered Acer Iconia A500, which we review here, but the silicon of choice inside is most likely Intel's Atom Z670.

The MeeGo interface has been reworked quite a bit from what we saw in February, and seems very pleasing, with the obligatory widgets, including a cool circular way to flip through them. The UI is scaled well now to the screen's size and resolution. Intel is obviously not giving up on MeeGo, as it promised when Nokia abandoned the venture, and has further plans for the platform. Since those evidently include very affordable and/or cool-looking gadgets, we'd say bring it on, Intel. Have a look at the Acer Iconia M500 unveiling below.

source: NetbookNews