First hands-on video of Dell Inspiron Duo, which will cost £449

The first Dell Inspiron Duo tablet-netbooks are expected to ship in the first week of December, and will cost £449 in the UK.

We've been quite excited about the Duo due to its unique design, which allows you to convert it from a netbook to a tablet simply by swivelling the screen inside the lid. It looks very quick and easy to do, and has been enough to draw gasps from people who see it for the first time.

We expect the much-anticipated device to be made available next week for pre-order on Dell's website, and the first of them could ship in early December, according to our sister site CNET.com. PC Pro reports that the Inspiron Duo will retail at £449 in the UK. This sounds pretty good compared to the £429 16GB iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, priced at around £480.

The Duo is said to carry a 1.5GHz dual-core Intel Atom N5450 processor, 2GB of DDR memory and either a 250GB or 320GB hard drive. The high-definition screen is capacitive with multi-touch capability and a 1,366x768-pixel resolution. There are also two USB ports, as well as sockets for headphones and a power adaptor. On the flip side, you can't expand the memory, there's no optical drive and the battery cannot be removed.

It'll have a 1.3 megapixel webcam and microphone, so you can video call, and it will be available in black, red and blue. You can buy an additional JBL speaker dock, which transforms the Duo into a digital picture frame or video phone. Leave the Duo for a few minutes and it turns into a desk clock, complete with an animated aquarium background.

CNET.com managed to get its hands on a pre-release Duo. Unfortunately, first indications are that it doesn't offer the same fluid experience as the iPad. This has been put down to the limitations of the Windows 7 OS it's running on, which isn't designed for touchscreens. Take a look at the video below.