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Can anyone suggest a very light-weight x86 tablet that comes with Windows 7 and can be equipped with at least 4 and preferably 8 GBytes of RAM? Aside from the HP Slate, that is, which we're aware of (and have used, but we'd like to find something lighter). It's for a Public Safety application, so ruggedized would be cool too, but that usually doesn't fit with 'light-weight'.

All input appreciated, and thanks in advance, fellow gerbils!

I assume you're familiar with Panisonic's "Toughbook" line -- they have an expensive ruggedized tablet (the H2) and a couple of convertibles with touch-screens. Not sure about RAM capacities -- you'll have to dig into the specs. Though I imagine if convertibles fit your needs you would've mentioned the Lenovo ones. None of these may qualify as utlra-light, though. What's your cut-off?

It's a pretty small market in terms of x86 slates, and x86 inherently limits how "lightweight" (and battery efficient, etc.) they can be.I also don't think you'll find one with 8 GB of RAM. But I've been testing the Samsung Series 7 (4 GB of RAM, Core i5s) at work, and they are pretty quick with decent battery life and nice screens.
Panasonic does have a tough slate (called the Toughpad) but it is android.

It doesn't meet all your criteria, but lenovo is launching the Thinkpad Tablet 2 slate in October.

10.1" 1366x768 IPS display
Dual Core Intel Atom (rumored to be Clover Trail)
2 GB RAM
64 GB SSD
1.3 lbs
10 hrs (manufacturer claim) battery life
Touch and Pen (if specc'ed with digitizer) input
Optional 4G WWAN
Optional keyboard dock
Windows 8 Professional

It's low on RAM, and has Win 8 instead of Win 7, but sounds like a very interesting device. x86 and Win 8 Pro, so will run existing windows and x86 programs as well as metro apps.

If it were Haswell instead of Atom I'd be interested =/

Voldenuit wrote:

It's low on RAM, and has Win 8 instead of Win 7, but sounds like a very interesting device. x86 and Win 8 Pro, so will run existing windows and x86 programs as well as metro apps.

Win8 may be far preferable for tablet/slates, but likely hasn't been validated yet for running the software he has in mind, and that's not something you just shrug off. Of course you can wipe it and install Win7, though there's a chance drivers will be a problematic. And if he's shopping right now, the whole thing is moot anyway. But if we're looking ahead, I expect this niche will have a much bigger population a year from now.

Thanks for the suggestions! I should have mentioned that I'm aware of the ToughBook/ToughPad models, and they are a prime contender, but the price makes us require an alternative for smaller clients.

I don't have a 'hard' cut-off, but I'd like to find something that's about 2 lbs or less. Battery life isn't a huge issue, although less than 4 hours ('real' 4 hours, not manufacturer's claims) wouldn't work out.

The Lenovo looks good; where do you see the 2 GB RAM limitation? We could probably 'get by' with 4 GBs of RAM, I think. I'm hoping that manufacturers will offer 'downgrade rights' when Windows 8 comes out (I think they're going to have to on corporate systems).

dpaus wrote:

The Lenovo looks good; where do you see the 2 GB RAM limitation? We could probably 'get by' with 4 GBs of RAM, I think. I'm hoping that manufacturers will offer 'downgrade rights' when Windows 8 comes out (I think they're going to have to on corporate systems).

Lenovo hasn't published hard specs yet, but several of the news articles on the tablet say 2GB:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/08/lenovo-unveils-new-atom-powered-thinkpad-tablet-2-with-windows-8/

Ewww, yech! But is says the standard spec is 2 GB; maybe it's upgradeable. Let us pray...

At this point offering anything in the x86 space with less than 4GiB is crazy stupid. It's not like it even saves that much on BOM, or imposes a requirement for dual channel. Sure, Win8 metro apps may be lighter weight (we'll see) but that's no excuse -- the whole reason to go x86 (rather than ARM) is to be able run the fat native "legacy" apps. Of course, things could get even more stupid if they then ship it with the x64 version of Win8.