HP offers some of the most affordable Windows tablets on the market at the moment, including the $100 HP Stream 7 and the Stream 8 which sells for $150 and up.

But some folks are willing to pay a bit more for better hardware, and it looks like HP has something in the works for those customers. The HP Pro Tablet 408 is an 8 inch Windows tablet with more memory, a better camera, and a bigger camera than the Stream 8. It also supports digital pen input.

The Pro Tablet 408 recently showed up at the FCC, but as Dave Zatz pointed out to me, there’s also a spec sheet for this unannounced tablet on the HP website.

Update: HP has officially launched the tablet. It’s available for $299 and up.

hp 408_01

HP hasn’t revealed the price for its new tablet yet, but here’s an overview of the hardware:

  • 8 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS touchscreen display with 10-point multitouch
  • Intel Atom Z3736F Bay Trail processor
  • 2GB RAM
  • 32GB or 64GB of eMMC storage
  • microSDXC card slot (up to 128GB of removable storage)
  • 8MP rear camera with auto-focus and flash, 2MP fixed-focus front camera
  • 4800mAh battery
  • 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0
  • Dual stereo speakers
  • Micro HDMI output and WiDi wireless display support

The tablet measures 8.4″ x 5.5″ x 0.35″ and weighs 13 ounces.

An HP Pro Tablet 408 Active Pen is listed as a “recommended accessory,” which suggests that the pen won’t come with the tablet unless you pay extra for it. But it also suggests that the tablet has an active digitizer for recognizing pressure-sensitive input when you’re writing or drawing.

An active pen also lets you hover the pen over the screen to move a cursor without tapping, which can come in handy when you’re using software that supports mouse hovering actions.

HP says the tablet also features TPM security and support for an optional 3G modem.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen evidence of a new “HP Pro Tablet.” A 10 inch model called the Pro Tablet 10 EE G1 showed up at the FCC last month.

Update: An unannounced 12 inch HP tablet code-named “Dane” also showed up at the FCC recently, but I haven’t found as many details about that model yet.

Update 2: Another FCC listing shows that the HP Pro Tablet 408 will be manufactured by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, Ltd… also known as Foxconn.

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18 replies on “HP Pro Tablet 408: Windows tablet with 8 inch display, pen support”

  1. A Stylus??? Gimme a break! I don’t need a Stylus to use an iPad or Android device. Instead of a Stylus, Microsoft should offer a free Microscope to read the itsy bitsy teeny weeny text on the screen.

  2. Hoping to see more “premium” 8 inch or even smaller tablets next week. Of course, I expect higher prices but hope they’re not ridiculously high.

  3. The real question for me with all these Windows tablets is what happens when Win10 comes to town? All the rumor is that there will be mobile and desktop SKUs. With mobile covering phone and tablets – not unlike Android and iOS when you think about it.
    That makes sense enough. But many of these current tablets are getting movement based on the fact they come with full Windows I think. So when Win10 comes out – I’d guess next Summer or late Spring – what happens to these tablets? Do they upgrade to Win10 Desktop or Win10 Mobile or do they not get upgraded at all?
    Is my nifty tablet with HDMI output suddenly relegated to only the Windows Mobile Apps store? Can I no longer run legacy Windows Desktop apps on it?
    I guess that like buying a budget Android tablet the move is to buy it with the idea that there will be no upgrades at all perhaps so it better do what you’d like it to do today.
    Hopefully Microsoft will address some of this stuff, along with what’s to be done about the price of Windows licensing in the consumer space, at the late January event. I very much doubt they will though.
    Personally I passed on a couple decent deals on Windows machines over the Holidays because MS has not yet said that Win 8.1 devices will get free upgrades to Win10. 8.1 isn’t so bad and I could cope with it for a few months. But I’d be hella-unhappy to find out I then had to pay for a Win10 upgrade.

    1. As much as I can tell, you’ll get full Windows on these tablets as well. Until you connect a mouse and a keyboard, it will behave like now, with Win 8.1, Metro apps running fullscreen, but you still get the desktop and obviously it works like it did before. When there is a mouse present, you get to choose whether you want to switch to ‘full desktop’ mode or stay with the current settings.

      1. Perhaps. I think come next year with Win10 you’ll see that behavior on 3-in-1 laptops and such. Higher end devices essentially with touch screens. Though I think you’ll be able to manually bring up either Metro or the desktop on anything with a full Desktop SKU.
        I think these cheaper, smaller tablets will be sporting the same OS version as the phones. And I do not think desktop apps will be a part of that at all.
        Since this is my guess at what the post Win10 world will look like it’s why I’m confused about what the upgrade path of these current cheaper tablets will be.

        1. These come with Intel chips, not sure why you would believe Microsoft would cripple them in future upgrade cycles.

      2. That is correct, the Win 10 will be a “FULL” OS on those devices that use 8.x “pro”, and will behave as a tablet AND a desktop, at the appropriate times, and even without a keyboard and mouse attached you will be able to go to the desktop apps… this was explained to me at a “seminar” on Win 10 given by Microsoft.

  4. I hope the pen is better than the dell one I have for my venue 11 pro, paid $35 and it doesn’t even work. Just shows a little dot when I hover it above the screen, It won’t respond to touch at all

      1. What is it? Reva03? I think I have a02. Did you just pay for another one or did dell give you a replacement?

        1. It’s not a new revision of the old stylus, it’s a different model. (Model AAGN vs the old one, AADH). I called dell to tell them my stylus sucked (Rev. A02) and asked that they send me the new model. I had to return my old stylus though.

    1. Dell uses a Synaptics stylus. It looks from the photos in the spec sheet
      that HP is still using an n-Trig stylus. The current version of the
      Dell stylus on my Venue 8 Pro is noticeably better than the n-Trig
      stylus on my HP Slate 500 but, to be fair, that was years ago and it was n-Trig’s first attempt at a stylus. Neither hold a candle to any of my
      Wacom styli but Lenovo hasn’t yet released an 8″ ThinkPad Windows tablet with a digitizer like the 10″ ThinkPad Tablet 2.

      1. Did you save the spec sheet photo? It seems to be removed from the HP website.

  5. Can’t say much until we know the price, but I’m glad the 1GB RAM devices era are coming to an end. The CPU is still a bit slower than the old 3740 was, but the HDMI is something I wish every tablet had from the beginning, a fair trade off. The screen bezel is quite big, but I hope it indicates a cheaper price.

      1. Yeah, it was frustrating how everyone in 2014 released ‘updated’ versions with slower CPU, less RAM and no free Office. But at least the HDMI became standard. Also interesting, how they specifically made WIMBoot for 16GB tablets, but I’m yet to see one using it by default.

      2. Intel and Microsoft still didn’t/didn’t want to address that 64 bit connected standby/32 bit UEFI issue, huh?

        If this one supports power injection on USB like the way my Miix 2 8 does and doesn’t come with the big HP Elite series price jack-up, it would be a nice toy.

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