HP’s 7 inch Android tablet is now available in the US. You can order the HP Slate 7 from the  HP website for $169.99. Free 2-day shipping is included.

HP Slate 7

The HP Slate 7 is the cheapest tablet the company has released to date, unless you count the ill-fated HP TouchPad 9.7 inch tablet which launched in 2011 for $499 and up, but which was quickly marked down to $99 in a liquidation sale.

Unlike the TouchPad, the new HP Slate 7 is designed from the get-go as a low-cost device. It’s about the same size and shape as a Google Nexus 7, but sells for $30 less.

The HP Slate 7 features a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, a 1.6 GHz Rockchip RK3066 ARM Cortex-A9 dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage.

Unlike Google’s tablet, the Slate 7 has a microSD card slot and a rear-facing camera (as well as a front-facing camera). But while the Nexus 7 ships with Android 4.2, the Slate 7 is a generation behind, running Android 4.1.

The tablet features 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 and has a 3500mAh battery which the company says should be good for up to 5 hours of run time.

Generally the Nexus 7 still seems like the better buy thanks to a quad-core CPU, newer software, longer battery life, a higher resolution display, and twice the built-in storage. But HP’s tablet does have front and rear cameras and a microSd card slot, which could appeal to some shoppers. It also features Beats audio.

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4 replies on “HP Slate 7 now available for $170”

  1. Specs a quite similar overall to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0″ which retails for about the same price now. I suspect HP is taking a conservative step and will ramp specs up as hardware costs continue to drop and they get some market share. I agree that “innovation” in this market segment consists of offering more for less right now though, so I’m not sure what the point of this product is. Perhaps they hope to sell these through existing megacorp/gov sole-source computer contracts?

  2. The display is the key in this price range. Is it a lousy TN display with bad view angles? If-not, I’m ready to buy. Another thing is – what is HP’s commitment on providing OS updates? No matter what, it’s an HP after all. So be ready to spend a lot of time trying to unload tons of crappy cripple-ware.

  3. Hmmmm… an update with more storage and better specs could be in the works [ wishful thinking ] but this with a 720p IPS display and a Rockchip3188 would rock.

    I hope this being out there means more resources [ kernel sources, specs ] for those hacking on them so more custom ROMS, other OSes [ WebOS anyone? ] running on them. A guy can dream, can’t he?

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