Intel presents MeeGo tablet prototype

Intel launched a developer preview of its MeeGo Linux distribution for tablets on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Unlike the netbook version of MeeGo, the tablet variant is based on dynamic panels rather than a traditional grid view of applications. The company says this is to make the user interface (UI) more user focused than application focused.

The OS is shown here running on a prototype tablet. Intel said it expects real devices to hit the shelves later in 2011.

MeeGo's video player worked well in the demonstration shown to ZDNet UK.

One notable feature of the tablet version of MeeGo is the ability to call up a menu of contextual options for most elements of the UI.

In this case, a long press on a photo results in a range of options including sharing the photo or setting it as the desktop background.

The browser demonstrated on the MeeGo prototype tablet was Flash capable.

One of the applications shown in the MeeGo demonstration was a simple Gmail client, which looked much more cut down than the equivalent client on the iPad or new Android tablets.

Although Intel was keen on showing off the more tablet-optimised panel interface, it is easy to switch back to the traditional application grid view if desired.

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