Samsung Gloria to be a 10" Windows 7 tablet with a slide-out keyboard

Take this with a large grain of salt, and maybe even pepper, but a French notebook blog is citing own sources that Samsung's tablet lineup next year will include a Windows 7 10-incher with a physical keyboard. The name of the slate is supposed to be Samsung Gloria, but we didn't quite grasp if that's for the tablet itself, or a new line of those.

Samsung is no stranger to the whole QWERTY-on-a-Windows-tablet concept, as it developed the Samsung Q1 Ultra back in the days when the iPad was still a twinkle in Steve Jobs's eyes. The Q1U, however, is 7", which seems to be the maximum we can stretch our thumbs over, and we are sure Samsung has noticed that too, placing the Q1U keyboard on both sides of the rim.

Now it sounds like a perfect solution for a non-touch optimized full-fledged operating system like Windows 7 to just include a hardware keyboard and mouse pad on the side, but for handling and thumb-typing this way on a 10-incher we can imagine all sorts of issues. Anyway, there is an artist's rendering of the Samsung Gloria, and the source also states that Samsung will be having its custom UI overlay on top of Win7. Well, at least Flash (or any software, for that matter) won't be an issue, and you won't have to use your pinky to close off a window. The tablet is supposed to come in the Spring of 2011. It doesn't hurt to try, Samsung.

source: Blogeee via SlashGear