Ready for some more tablet news? Yeah, we know, this one’s different. Promise. It’s MSI’s 10-inch, Tegra-powered machine we checked out a few weeks back at CES. We were reasonably smitten then and, despite the new competition, we still think it looks promising. But, a $500 MSRP probably isn’t going to help things much when it launches sometime in the second half of this year, if a report from DigiTimesproves to be correct. Specifications are said to be “flexible” and the company will “launch different models based on market demand,” meaning if everyone coughs at that price point there’s a good chance MSI will dig deep and release an even cheaper model. Sounds like a good idea to us.

Many details on this model remain a mystery — including the name — but its manufacturer says that it will actually be a range of products, each with different specifications. All of these will be light and slim, with some form of wireless connectivity.

One detail that MSI isn’t keeping quiet about this upcoming tablet, however, is that it will be based on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor. This chip has been designed specifically for this class of products. It emphasizes good performance with low battery requirements. The Tegra 2 is a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU running up to 1 GHz. Its actually eight independent processors to handle web browsing, HD video encode and decode, and Adobe Flash Player 10.1 acceleration for streaming video and 3D mobile games.

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