PC makers keep churning out tablet devices in the hopes of imitating
Apple and Amazon's success, with HP being the latest thanks to Monday's
announcement of the new Slate 7. HP, however, has a checkered past with
tablet devices. What's different this time? An audio feature targeting
music lovers, and a low price point that may be music to the ears of
cost-conscious consumers.
The device will be available in April for US$169.
The company's previous tries at tablet devices -- and mobile
operating systems -- have landed with loud thuds in the marketplace. The
Slate 7 is an attempt at erasing those memories by gaining a lot of
momentum in a hurry.
"They're chasing the low price point, so, if you want a 7-inch
tablet, they'll have the cheapest in the market," Rob Enderle, principal
analyst at the
Enderle Group,
told TechNewsWorld. "It's a way to get volume and maybe to get a seat
at the table, because right now none of the PC makers is doing well with
tablets."
HP did not respond to our request to comment for this story.
The Slate 7's Specs
The Slate 7 weighs 13 ounces and has a stainless steel frame. It runs
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on a 1.6 GHz ARM Dual Core Cortex-A9 processor.
It has a 1024-by-600 pixel LCD screen. It also has what HP calls a
"high-aperture-ratio" field fringe switching panel, which offers wide
angles for better viewing of content on the device, indoors or outside.
The tablet has a 3 MP camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. The device has a micro USB port and a microSD card slot.
The Slate 7 comes pre-loaded with the HP ePrint wireless printing
application. It also has a native printing capability that HP claims
will let owners print directly from most applications.
It supports 802.11n 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1. It will run any
app on Google Play, and comes preloaded with the standard Google
services -- Gmail, Google Search, Google Drive, YouTube -- that are
found on any Android device. The Slate 7 will also carry a suite of
applications from HP that range from exclusive games to productivity
tools.
HP has included Beats Audio in the Slate 7 in a bid to target music
lovers, making it the first tablet ever to have this capability. Beats
Audio is "spectacular on the HTC phones," Enderle said.
Pros and Cons
The device is competing with the Kindle HD and Nexus 7, he added.
However, at that price point, "they may get revenues, but profits will
be hard to get."
Another potential problem is its name; HP already offers
Windows-based tablets called the Slate 2 and Slate 500, and "confusion
is a possibility, so HP will need to be careful in branding exercises,"
Charles King, principal analyst at
Pund-IT, told TechNewsWorld.
HP also offers a Windows 8 tablet for the enterprise called the HP ElitePad.
"I think HP's Slate and Chromebook simply demonstrate its recognition
of the reality of the mobile market, where Microsoft's position is
miniscule," King said. "If HP wants to play seriously here, Android, and
to a lesser but still intriguing extent, Chrome, are the way to go."
Slate's Role in HP's Tablet Story
The Slate 7 "is just one piece of a larger strategy," King said. "It seems like a good first step but the road ahead is long."
If HP gets volume sales with the Slate 7 that "could give people the
impression they're a player and with that belief they could get to
create something else, so think of this as a process," Enderle said. "It
could work."
Source : technewsworld.com
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