Things are starting to heat up a bit as the Apple iPad is set to be released. PC makers like HP are all prepping their vision of the tablet PC by leaking photos and offering bloggers to test drive their new gadgets. Articles are popping up either predicting success or failure of the iPad while pointing out why a particular device will win over the iPad.

One such article came out a few weeks ago.  Well known technology analyst, Robert Enderle wrote how Apple got it all wrong when compared to Dell’s soon-to-be released Mini 5.

What should Apple have done, according to Robert Enderle? Apple should have made a slightly larger iPhone than a mega sized iPod.  The Dell does exactly that, making the Mini 5  an ultraportable device with a good size screen that would make a nice compliment for someone with a smartphone, a laptop and Amazon’s Kindle:

The Dell Mini 5 loads Google apps which should also scale relatively easily from a 3.5” screen to a 5” screen. You can put the Dell Mini in a belt pouch (big one), battery life seems to be similar to a screen phone and likely not yet optimized, and it is vastly better than an iPhone (thanks to its larger screen) for browsing, watching video, gaming (assuming you can find good games) and typing. 

It is also substantially better for us old farts who don’t like to wear glasses. At 5” the screen is 90% larger which is really what makes a lot of things better. It multi-tasks, has two cameras (one a 5 mega pixel with twin LED lights and digital zoom – the other for video conferencing), and both a removable battery and expandable memory.  

But it is the fact that you can toss your phone and replace it with this device that makes it work otherwise you have to carry another largely redundant device with yet another dataplan.

It should be interesting how it turns out. There is a place for both of these devices. The iPad has brought a lot of attention to tablet PC’s this year. It may finally be the time that tablet PC’s will become more mainstream as Bill Gates had predicted almost ten years ago, but instead of devices just running a desktop version of Windows, we’ve also going to have devices running at least Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone OS or Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS. It’s going to be a good year!

Hewlett-Packard is looking to undersell its upcoming iPad rival slate device, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Little is known about the device other than what was presented at CES in Las Vegas. However, it looks to appeal to those who think the iPad should work like a PC and not an iPhone.

The iPad with 3G capabilities is expected to sell for $629 so HP is looking to sell for less than that. Perhaps $499?

We are definitely looking forward to this!

BNET’s Brent Schlender chatted  with Microsoft founder Bill Gates about Apple’s new iPad. Bill Gates is basically unimpressed with the iPad, especially compared to how he felt about the iPhone when it was first announced in 2007.

“You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard – in other words a netbook – will be the mainstream on that,” he said. “So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”

It remains to be seen how well the iPad when it comes out in a few months. Netbooks have established themselves as a nice and affordable in-between of smartphone and desktop/laptop PC’s.

As for the tablet PC’s, Bill Gates predicted in 2001 that everyone will be using one in five years. Obviously, it hasn’t happened but who knows, with the iPad and advancements in netbooks, it might finally come true.

There’s an interesting editorial on the iPad’s need to have both multitasking and multiple user setup. While lacking both of these features is not necessarily a deal breaker, it could be a bit of an inconvenience for those who intend to use the iPad as a laptop replacement. While we won’t exactly know how well the iPad will deal with the iWork productivity apps, the article points out a possible shortcoming without multitasking:

Actually, multitasking is essential to one of the major features that Apple has been touting on the iPad: iWork. Imagine trying to make a Keynote presentation without being able to access other files or being able to check on the Internet for data, citations or other information. Sure, there is reported to be a shared folder on the iPad, which all applications will be able to access. So you can stick your text files, graphics, videos and music files there if you already know you want to use them for a presentation, Pages document, or Numbers spreadsheet. But if you’re like most people, you don’t plan out every step of your documents ahead of time; you build them up as you go along. If you have to quit, say, Keynote every time you need to check something on the web or copy some data from a Numbers spreadsheet, you’ll be spending a lot of time switching apps and not much time producing.

The key for the iPad is how quickly one will be able to jump from one app to the next.  If it takes a second or two to launch an app, then multitasking may not be an issue but if you have to wait five to ten seconds, then it can get pretty annoying.  At this point, we don’t know for sure but hopefully issues will be addressed once the iPad comes out in full swing.

It’s been almost a week since Apple announced the iPad. Since that time, thousands of bloggers and forum posters put their two cents and exclaimed why the iPad will suck or why it will be the start of a new revolution for portable computing.

One of the big questions is should you get an iPad instead of a netbook?

The answer is, it depends on what you plan to do with it.

If you were planning to get a netbook and plan to use it like a regular windows laptop, the iPad will probably not suit your needs.:

• The iPad will not have USB ports, or a physical keyboard out of the box; you will have to purchase them separately.
• You can’t run any of the apps that you currently run on your home pc or laptop, instead, you will have to get a whole new set of apps to run on it.
• Adobe Flash is not supported for the iPad so all those free flash games and flash based websites will not work.

Apple’s approach to the iPad is different than HP’s approach to their upcoming Slate. The iPad appears to be iPod Touch/eBook reader on steroids, with the ability to not only surf the net, read books and play games but create presentations, crunch numbers, and other things that the iPod Touch or eBook readers are not able to well or cannot do at all.

The HP slate, on the other hand, appears to be a touch screen version of Windows 7. This would appeal to those who are quite comfortable with Windows and would want it as an extension of their PC or laptop, or maybe make it their primary pc device.   As for the netbook?  It is what it is: an inexpensive and compact version of a full fledged laptop, nothing more. For under $300, you can a pretty decent netbook running Windows XP or Windows 7 starter. You can easily carry it to your favorite hang out spot and do some quick email check, perhaps get some work done using your favorite office application, maybe play a game that runs on flash or do all three at the same time. If  you drop it and it breaks, just get a new one. It’s cheap and you don’t have to wait two months for the iPad or six months for the HP Slate.