HP Slate 7 Preview

Available now
25th February 2013

The HP Slate 7 is HP's first Android device, and is HP's first consumer tablet since the HP TouchPad that was announced two years ago. Sales of the TouchPad were catastrophically bad, and HP ended up dumping the inventory and announced it was quitting the smartphone and tablet business.

HP has had a few changes since then, and they have decided that perhaps they want a slice of the tablet market after all. As a result, the new HP Slate 7 should be available from April 2013, priced at just $169 in the US. This is a modestly-specified device with perhaps modest sales expectations, but with the "HP" badge on the back it should at least be a good quality device.

We don't have all the specifications of the Slate 7 at present. What we do know is that it has a 7" 600 x 1024 pixel display, a dual-core 1.6Hz ARM Cortex A9 processor and 8GB of onboard flash storage. There's a 3 megapixel camera on the back and a 0.3 megapixel one on the front. The whole package measures 197 x 116 x 10.7mm and weighs approximately 370 grams.

The Slate 7 also has a microSD slot, and music playback is enhanced with Beats Audio. The operating system is Android 4.1, although we are told to expect some HP-exclusive content. And because this is an HP, then you should be able to print to your HP printer.. something that other tablets fail to do.

It looks like a good value device, but the HP brand isn't very sexy and HP's poor performance in this market segment hasn't made them any fans. Perhaps success will depend on the whole package, and we do not yet know what HP intends to bundle with the Slate 7 to entice customers.