Dell, Computers | featured news

Dell Inc intends to launch its first consumer tablet computer in late 2012, marking its entry into a hotly contested and increasingly crowded arena that has already claimed arch-foe Hewlett Packard.

Dell's Alienware M14x Gaming Laptop strikes a balance between portability and performance, along with striking good looks. In our opinion, it's hard not to be thoroughly impressed with this 14-inch alien-born beauty.

We estimate Dell will sell around 700,000 tablets in 2011, capturing nearly 5% of Android tablets sold in the market, and will increase sales to close to 2.3 million units by 2013.

Dell will launch its seven-inch tablet in the next few weeks, the company's Greater China president said.

Dell introduces Windows tablet that comes with a keyboard and may be essentially turned into a standard laptop.

The PC maker hopes to sell its new tablet computer to the public sector as well as consumers.

Dell's quarterly profit improved 52% as shipments jumped and revenue grew in each product segment, although margins again fell.

Dell reported a 5% drop in fourth-quarter earnings Thursday, but the computer maker beat Wall Street's expectations on solid sales across all its segments as businesses started spending on IT again.

Dell Inc reported stronger-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday, showing it was better able to cut costs and protect prices on its products than analysts, or its own executives, had predicted.

The company is researching the possibility of offering new Linux-based mobile devices called smartbooks, said Todd Finch, senior product marketing manager for Linux clients, at the OpenSourceWorld conference in San Francisco. The company will also upgrade its Ubuntu Linux OS for netbooks to the latest version in the next few weeks, he said.