10-19-2011, 05:33 PM
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Editorial Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 5,411
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I actually had the patience to wait for my HP Slate 500. It's a nice piece of hardware, but suffers a little from some state of the art at the time. Mostly it is a bit underpowered, and the screen size is a bit small for Windows 7, though it is absolutely not unusable as many are brainwashed to say.
I would love to see HP create a reasonable sized Windows 8 Slate, even based on the design concepts of the 500. They have done very well with touch screen devices in the past IMHO, understanding that an active screen, with stylus, is a must if you expect to allow real work in slate mode. I am concerned about HPs commitment though. They keep making noises about getting out of the consumer PC business. Aren't they still the number one seller of PCs/laptops? Possibly they are just thinking about spinning the division off like IBM/Lenovo.
I haven't loaded Win8 on my slate yet, but am thinking about it as a weekend project. Found enough info on driver requirements on various forums that make it sound like everything should work OK. [I have Win 8 on a Dell duo, and there are a few driver deficiencies but nothing major] On the Slate though I wanted to make sure folks got the NTrig active screen/stylus to work.
Cost is going to be a factor, and it is sad that folks don't compare apples to apples (no reference to the company intended). When the HP Slate was selling for $799, the comparisons were to the $499 iPad. The specs put it closer to the $700 one (64G, WiFi). When you added stuff like dock, stylus, case, USB support, to the iPad, which was included with the HP, it was actually cheaper, and Windows had more apps in the 'app store', aka, the internet.
So when Win8 slates show up with quad core processors, and 128G SSDs, bundled with docks and wireless keyboards, for $1000, folks are going to compare them to Kindle Fire. Of course it depends entirely on what you intend to do with it, But the Samsung Slate given out at Build with Win 8 preview on it, could conceivably replace most folks desktops, and laptop, and media consumption tablet. Might want to add an external monitor, and a bigger USB drive, but you can...easily.
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