HP slate saddled with 5-hour battery, $549 price
updated 07:20 pm EDT, Mon April 5, 2010
HP tablet to have short life but 1080p
The HP slate's battery will last half as long as the iPad's, a leaked presentation showed on Monday. Since it will use a year-old 1.6GHz Atom processor, the Windows 7 tablet will run for five hours where the ARM-powered Apple device will last for at least 10 hours. The edge, Engadget has learned, would come even despite the HP tablet's smaller and lower resolution 8.9-inch, 1024x600 screen.
Cost would also be an issue. An HP slate should cost less for 32GB of storage, at $549 versus $599, but Apple will still carry the price advantage at $499. A 64GB HP model would be the best value at $599.
Most of HP's advantage should come from expansion and limited HD support. The slate should have the same Broadcom Crystal HD video decoder as some netbooks and will support decoding 1080p video, but will be incapable of modern 3D gaming. It should have a single USB port but will also carry an SDXC card reader, HDMI, a 3-megapixel back camera and a VGA front camera for video chats. Pen support is cited as an advantage, although the iPad can support capacitive touch pens of its own.
HP's device would also carry the same 1.5-pound weight in spite of its smaller frame.
The revelations show that HP fully intends to target the iPad when the slate eventually ships but that the hardware will struggle to compete against similarly priced netbooks. An ASUS Eee PC T101MT is thicker and heavier but also costs $40 less while using a larger screen, a modern Atom processor and longer battery life.
TAGS :
Intel, computers, gadgets, ASUS, HP, Eee PC, tablet, Broadcom, Atom, Windows 7, Apple, iPad, slate
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2008
Twice the Spec
All HP has to do is double up on the Spec Feature count. Actually add more stuff, like "on, off, standby toggle switch" and "five USB ports" and "SVGA/VGA/HDMI/SVideo/Composite" and "Dual Removable Battery Bay" and "BR/DVD/CD/R-RW/DL Drive" and "three cameras" and "Stereo Speakers w/Subwoofer" and "Slide Out Ultra Thin Keyboard" and "Infrared/RF/BT/WiFi/3G/Wimax/4G" and "HD added on all features". Yeah I think that will do it. People will forget the silly 3 hours max ( if your luck ) run time.