Canonical’s Ubuntu platform may not have had the success it deserved in the Ubuntu Touch flavour, but now there’s a slate taking advantage of its capabilities. It’s called the BQ M10 and it aims at replacing a computer.
The slate gets a custom designed UI, not exactly Ubuntu Touch, but also not full Ubuntu either. If one plugs it into a monitor, the UI changes again, also changing the way the product is being used. The M10 packs a Full HD 10.1 inch screen, a quad core 1.5 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot.
There’s an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus and dual LED flash, so specs are rather midrange here. The product will be on sale from Q2 via BQ, that also handles the sales of Ubuntu handsets and even some models with Cyanogen on board. It’s important to remember that in tablet mode the M10 uses Ubuntu’s mobile OS, with scopes that cover email, messaging, news, music and more.
The good news is that anything that works on this OS also works on the desktop OS. Basically, Canonical pulled a Continuum on us, since connecting a monitor to the tablet turns it into a PC.
