HP’s upcoming Slate PC is probably one of the most hotly anticipated iPad rivals. That’s largely because it’s one of the few tablets on the horizon that comes from a big name company that we’ve all heard of. Since the slate will run Windows 7, it’s also going to have a number of features missing from the iPad, including the ability to run Adobe Flash, multitasking support, and the ability to run Windows software, as well as apps designed specifically for tablets. Heck, you could even plug in a keyboard, mouse, printer, and external display and use it like a portable desktop.
But details on the HP slate have been hard to come by. Now Spanish site Clipset says that the HP slate will cost about €400 at launch. That’s about $545 US, although it’s not clear if the price will be the same in the US and Europe.
Clipset says HP will launch the tablet in June, and that it will be available in Europe before September. Hopefully (if you live in the US, anyway), that means it will appear in the States before that.
There’s also some news about the specs. Clipset says the HP slate has an Intel Atom processor — although there’s no mention of which Atom processor HP is using. There’s also a memory card reader, a camera on the back of the tablet, and USB port(s). The tablet is thicker than the iPad and the prototype Clipset got to handle had a non-slip, rubber finish on the back.
via Engadget
If they release at about $450, which would be the pretty normal euro to dollar conversion on releases like this, it would also make sense in placing it below the iPad but not particularly so… This device will still be over priced, and that’s assuming they don’t put in a Z series Atom, which they probably will all things considered, then it’s way overly so.
The only great thing I can think about this tablet is that I could pull Windows 7 off of it, and put on something more appropriate to a tablet. I just don’t think a keyboardless netbook is really comparable to a slate style tablet with a OS designed for touch with applications that are also designed for touch.
HP has an entire line of TouchSmart PCs. HP has put a lot of time and effort into designing a touch oriented UI for their computers.
Windows 7 also handles touch in it’s applications very well. This was one of the major enhancements of Windows 7 over Vista.
There are millions more software applications, widgets, and browser add-ons available for Windows than what is available for the iPhone/iPad. None of the 140,000 iPhone apps were designed with the iPads screen size and resolution in mind and most of them look absurd on the iPad screen. The iPad is less suited to run iPhone apps than a netbook screen is suited to run Windows software.
The bottom line is that with iPad you are paying a lot of money for a device that does very little compared to a computer. With the HP Slate you are paying less money than iPad for a device that can do everything a netbook computer can do.