TechCrunch has taken a considerable next step in the development of their web tablet concept revealed earlier this summer. As you can see in this video it’s actually quite functional, quick and looks pretty nice.
Assuming they develop this device further, and that’s a big if at this point, it may end up as a ‘tweener which is not a good thing for CE devices. The netbook market and this tablet have massive overlap both in function and price. For the $299 price you can get a very capable netbook that offers a considerable amount of capablity through a real keyboard. The screen resolution on the CrunchPad (as it’s being called) is higher than any netbook 1024×768 (pages fit without scrolling) and it’s also 12″ which makes it larger too. Weight seems comparable in it’s current proto state to the 10″ EeePC.
What the CrunchPad seeks to do it apparently does it quite well. I thought the performance in page loading and video playbook looks awesome! It tends to takes a higher end netbook to do the same stuff at that speed… Coming back to the keyboard though I think being able to tap out email and IM is really important for people – let alone posting to blogs, Facebook and other social sites. On screen tapping is not going to be very fun …