Finally, Dell's much talked about tablet PC is officially announced. The latitude XT is a sexy 12.1-inch machine with decent specifications (it's certainly no gaming powerhouse). The $2500 system is industry's "thinnest and one of the lightest 12.1-inch convertible" and is designed for mobile graphics professionals who can immensly benefit from it's touch sensing capabilities. The sub-four-pound tablet boast capacitive touch capability that senses the touch of a finger with no pressure required for the system to recognize input. It is also the forerunner to emerging multi-touch capabilities that allow the use of more than one finger for tasks such as zoom and repositioning a picture.

“We are listening and aim to exceed customers’ expectations,” said Margaret Franco, director, Dell Product Group. “Until now, customers have been forced to make tradeoffs in tablet functionality to have usable systems. With Capacitive touch technology, the Latitude XT will revolutionize the way customers interact with their systems, allow customers to take full advantage of tablet technology and enables customers to get more done with greater speed and precision.”

Configuration:

Intel Core 2 Solo U2100 (1.06GHz) or Core 2 Duo U7600 (1.20GHz) processor
ATI Radeon X1250 UMA integrated graphics
up to 3GB RAM
Up to 64GB solid state drive; up to 120GB hard drive
Optional media base for docking and optical media
Full-size keyboard with dual pointing
Optional battery slice designed to provide up to 9.5 hours of battery life
wireless WAN, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth
Operating system -- Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 / Vista Business / Vista Ultimate. In China, it will ship with the Red Flag Linux OS

The system starts at $2,499 and Dell will begin to take orders and ship the Latitude XT by the end of the year.