Matt Rosoff really should consider a career change.

Matt Rosoff doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, and yesterday’s post “See If You Can Spot The Problem With Microsoft’s Tablet Strategy” proves it in fine style.

After reading the post all that can be claimed is that Rosoff either has a serious anti-Microsoft bug up his ass, or he’s a moron. You tell me.

The basic premise of Rosoff’s post is that Asus is releasing a Windows 7 based tablet (the Eee Slate EP121) for $999, so Microsoft’s tablet strategy is a complete failure because everything else is less expensive, including the iPad which Rosoff states starts at $499.

It should be noted that Asus also announced 3 other tablets at CES, the EeePad MeMo, the EeePad Slider and the EeePad Slider all of which run Android, and are considerably cheaper than the tablet running Windows 7. This disparity in pricing is all the proof that Rosoff and Chris Nemey needed to run down both the tablet and Microsoft’s apparent strategy.

Lets get a few things straight here for the benefit of people like Rosoff and Nemey. Asus is releasing this tablet, not Microsoft. If Alienware wants to release a tablet tomorrow, slap Windows 7 on it and charge $5000 that is their call, and has nothing to do with Microsoft, let alone their strategy.

It’s not the price of Windows 7 that is driving the cost of the Eee Slate EP121 up. It’s the specs of the machine (specs of the other machines mentioned are here too):

The Slate EP121 features a 12.1-inch (1280 x 800), multi-touch capacitive display (two inputs, 178-degree viewing angle), and Intel Core i5-470UM processor, a 64 GB or 32 GB solid state drive, and either 2 GB or 4 GB of DDR3 system memory. In addition, the tablet has Bluetooth 3.0 and b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity, HDMI out, an SD card slot, a 2.0 megapixel camera for video chat, and supports Adobe Flash 10.1.

The EP121 also offers a multitude of input options, be it through the multi-touch screen, a wireless Bluetooth keyboard, or the included Wacom digitizer pen.

It will ship with a folio carrying case that doubles as a stand, a Bluetooth keyboard, and a Wacom Pen.

The EP121 measures 12.28 x 8.15 x .66 inches and weighs 2.53 pounds.

There is a reason this tablet is being touted as “the most powerful tablet available“.

A fully loaded iPad will cost you $829 ($699 without 3G) and that’s without any accessories such as the keyboard or case which cost $69 and $39 respectively.  (I don’t know what a digitizer pen costs for an iPad or if one is even available.) That brings the cost to $1007 or $807 for a machine that at either price is, from a hardware point of view, vastly inferior to the EP121.

Rosoff also calls the 12.1 inch screen small, even though it’s larger than most netbooks and the iPad’s 9.7 screen, and goes on to blubber incoherently about Windows 7.

I’m not sure if he’s complaining about it not being Windows 7 Home Premium on the tablet or that Windows 7 is unusable on a small touch screen, but he blubbers on anyway:

If you want the real version of Windows 7–not some stripped-down version that offers few benefits over Windows XP–that’s Windows 7 Home Premium. It’s not only more expensive than Android, but also requires better hardware.

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Again, for clarity, the EP121 runs Windows Home Premium and, lets be honest, Windows 7 works perfectly on a 12 inch screen (and let us not forget you also get more than just your fingers for input), although I do agree that below 9 inches that ceases to be the case.

Technical specs aside, the thing that really irks me about Rosoff”s post is the sheer blatant ignorance and hostility of it.

It would probably be a safe bet that if the EP121 had debuted with Android running on it, it would have been heralded as the next best thing at this price point. Finally a serious high end android tablet! But it’s Windows so it must be crap.

Rosoff seriously needs to either start doing some research about specs and pricing before putting fingers to keyboard and opening his virtual mouth, set his obvious hostility aside and at least attempt to write fair coverage or simply piss off and stop polluting the tech blogosphere with crap posts like that one.

Rant over, I’m off to play Angry Birds on my Samsung Galaxy S (Vibrant).

[Cross-posted at Winextra]