First MeeGo tablet to hit market next week

The first tablet to feature the MeeGo operating system is set to hit the shelves next week.

Initially the WeTab will only be available in Germany, but Intel which launched the OS with Nokia back at Mobile World Congress in February is hoping the device will catapult the operating system into the consciousness of consumer and business alike.

The tablet is a joint effort from Neofonie and 4tiitoo and was introduced by the chief executive (CEO) of the latter, Stephan Odorfer, during a keynote at IDF 2010.

"We started this project about three years ago on Ubuntu but switched to MeeGo a couple of months ago," he said.

"We actually thought MeeGo was a very optimised system for tablets... a comprehensive operating system but very light."

The tablet boasts boot up times of just 16 seconds, with one second recovery time for when it goes to sleep. It is built on the MeeGo 1.0 Framework but supports Adobe Air and Android applications.

Shipping of the tablet begins on Tuesday but a global release date had not been confirmed at the time of publication.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.