MSI Tegra Tablet Coming 2H 2010 For $500

We'd question the timing of announcing tablet plans so close to Apple's iPad launch, but with mixed reactions to the Cupertino slate perhaps there's room for rivals to sneak in.  MSI's sales director, Sambora Chen, has confirmed that they too have a 10-inch touchscreen slate in the works, which will arrive in the second half of 2010 priced at around $500.

Full specifications of the slate haven't been confirmed, but we do know it will run an NVIDIA Tegra chipset, presumably the second-gen model announced at CES 2010 earlier this month.  That would give it 1080p HD support and extensive battery life, potentially far longer than the 10hrs runtime the iPad can muster.

Chen says the as-yet-unnamed tablet will be thin and lightweight, and have unspecified wireless connectivity; it will also feature "all the functions of a regular notebook", as opposed to the iPhone OS the iPad runs.  MSI are also planning various different tablet models which would cater to different user requirements.