The HP Slate 500 is a Windows 7 tablet with an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display and a 1.86 GHz Intel Atom Z540 processor. When the tablet hit the streets in 2010, HP sold it for $799 and up. But now you can grab one from B&H for under $500.

HP Slate 500

HP doesn’t actually offer this model anymore. Instead the company sells the HP Slate 2 with an Intel Atom Z670 Oak Trail processor for $699 and up. But aside from the new processor, and a few other minor changes, there’s not much difference between the Slate 500 and the Slate 2… except price.

For $499.95, B&H is offering a model with 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 64GB solid state disk,  802.11b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth.

The tablet has a capacitive multitouch display, but it also comes with a digital pen and active digitizer. It has a USB 2.0 port and microSDXC card slot, a front-facing VGA camera, and a rear 3MP camera.

The Slate 500 also has a Broadcom Cyrstal HD video accelerator which supports 1080p HD video playback. It measures 9.2″ x 5.9″ x 0.6″ and weighs 1.5 pounds.

HP targets this line of computers at business users, which helps explain the typically high prices. But at $500, the Slate 500 might actually be a reasonable alternative to an iPad or Android tablet for anyone that needs to be able to run Windows apps on the go.

While it’s not clear whether HP will officially support Windows 8 on the tablet, some users have already installed the developer preview of Microsoft’s upcoming tablet-friendly operating system.

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9 replies on “HP Slate 500 Windows tablet price drops to $500”

  1. Bought a Slate and after 1 day of being frustrated with Windows 7 on the tablet that I threw caution to the wind and did a full install of Windows 8 Customer Preview!  WOW!  I did the complete upgrade and did not create a partition.  I was able to work around the N Trig Touch issues and the Screen resolution with downloading and running the Install of the Drivers in Compatability mode and in no time I took a tablet I was ready to give away to it becoming my favorite tablet I have owned!!!  I have owned Ipads, HP Touchsmarts, Kindle Fires, and a few others.  The Hp Slate 500 with Windows 8 is by far my favorite and most usefull in business!!! 

  2. I’ve noticed that with the Slate on B&H you also get the docking station, folio, and pen. This tablet deal is really great.

  3. Argh! I have a legitimate business use for one of these but held off since the price/per ratio was just to high. At the promo price it starts to make sense, so I bought one. It’s about the same pref level as my HP5102 netbook, but will be used at a major trade show to showcase some software for wirelessly controlling our other products.

  4. Didn’t Msoft’s Win8 tablet requirements say you need 1366×768 to run? I’ve installed Win8 on devices with 1024×768 screens and it doesn’t work very well – you don’t get the Metro multitasking stuff below 1366wide. 

    1. Win 8 runs on the Slate 500, but for “multitasking with snap” (a kind of sidebar) function you have to have 1366×768 or larger resolution.

      1. Yes, the requirement is only for Metro’s enhanced features.  The OS will still run with lower resolution, just not with all the bells and whistles enabled.

        The desktop mode will of course still work regardless as well, though there appears to be some question whether that will be an option on ARM.

  5. “it’s not clear whether HP will officially support Windows 8 on the tablet” I disagree. It is clear that they will not support it, otherwise they would have come out and made a statement as it would sell more tablets.

  6. I’ve given up on Intel Atom tablets for the next couple of years.
    Too slow to run Windows decently.  I’m going to hold out until
    AMD comes out with their follow-on to C/E series. 

    1. Depends if they can get the max TDP lower or if they just go with higher performance.  For example you can possible see a C-Series but not a E-Series, since they still generate too much heat and cost starts going to the point that they might as well just go with the higher end Core i-Series solutions. 

      For example, even with netbooks you can’t find a E-Series in anything smaller than a 11.6″ system.

      While AMD has the Desna Z-Series specifically for tablets anyway.

      Basically they took the C-50 and optimized it to reduce the max TDP to 5.9W for the Z-01.  Still manages to get C-50 performance but offers lower idle speeds and they eliminated unneeded things like support for more than one of each port.

      While the newer Cedar Trail ATOM’s provide a small performance boost as even the low end N2600 1.6GHz is a dual core, with just 3.5W max TDP, and the new GMA provides double the performance of the older ATOMs, along with finally adding support for HDMI/Display-Port as well as hardware acceleration of video up to 20Mbps Blu Ray.

      The higher end mobile ATOM N2800 1.86GHz provides about as much performance as the old nettop ATOM D525 1.8GHz but max TDP is only 6.5W.  While Intel has a N2850 on paper, which is likely to be released at a later date that will up the clock speed to 2GHz and the max TDP to 7W.

      While the D2700 provides a 2.13GHz nettop range solution.

      Overall, not a huge update, aside from the lower costs, lower TDP, and slight CPU bumps, but add that Windows 8 should keep resource requirements low, if not lower than Windows 7, and they’ve gotten better at optimizing Windows for tablets, along with switching from resistive to capacitive, means they should at least not suck as much as they use to.

      However, if you want to be sure then wait till 2013 as the 22nm Silvermont update will provide the first real architectural update to the ATOM that should be a game changer and hopefully by then AMD should have gotten any problems they’ve been having with their 28nm production cleared up.  Though AMD may still get those out before the end of this year.

      While on the higher end Intel will also be coming out with the Haswell SoC if you want full laptop range performance in your tablet.

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