Windows 7 HP's Slate 500 tablet goes on sale for $

HP's Slate 500 tablet goes on sale for $800
Posted on by Agam Shah, IDG News Service

Hewlett-Packard on Friday said its hugely predicted Slate 500 tablet—the company’s initial these device—is now available for purchase.

Targeted at businesses, the tablet will include an eight.9-inch display screen and operate Microsoft’s Windows 7 Expert OS. It costs $799 and it is right away accessible in the U.S. by way of HP’s site and channel partners.



The Slate 500 was first intended being a buyer item when HP announced it in January, but the organization reassessed its ideas for your system after acquiring Palm for $1.two billion in April. HP is now focusing on the Slate 500 at organization customers who need a handheld gadget and are acquainted using the Windows OS and workplace productivity applications, mentioned Carol Hess-Nickels, director of globally business notebook advertising and marketing at HP’s Personalized Systems Group.

HP ideas to release a separate tablet for buyers using the WebOS cellular application, which was acquired from Palm. The WebOS tablet, which is however unnamed, is going to be intended for pursuits like browsing the net, watching motion pictures, taking part in games and studying e-books, HP has mentioned. It will be introduced in 2011, an HP spokesman stated.

The Slate 500 provides individuals capabilities but also is built to connect to servers to report and pull data in real time, Hess-Nickels explained. Numerous enterprises use Windows 7, and the unit fits quickly into IT infrastructures, she stated.

“As we discuss to company customers … they’ve advised us they need to own a common image all across their units,” Hess-Nickels said.

The tablet weighs about 1.5 pounds (0.68 kilograms), so end users can quickly have it to report transactions or get inventory. With VPN (virtual private network) assistance, employees can securely connect to corporate networks.

Designed for “moderate material development,” the Slate 500 comes with multitouch and pen-input abilities, and includes a software program keyboard for data input, Hess-Nickels mentioned.

The tablet has two cameras—a 3-megapixel digital camera with the again as well as a VGA digital camera from the front—which might be employed for videoconferencing. A Broadcom graphics accelerator presents 720p video playback.

The Slate has an Intel Atom Z540 processor, which runs at a clock pace of one.68GHz. It comes having a 64GB solid-state drive and 2GB of RAM. A USB port will help link exterior storage towards the system.

The tablet offers about 5 hrs of battery daily life and recharges in the dock. The dock consists of USB and HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) ports plus a headphone jack.

HP’s Slate 500 will only be offered inside the U.S. for now,Windows 7, an HP spokeswoman mentioned. HP did not announce throughout the world availability but will assess expanding into other markets, she mentioned.

The gadget will compete with other organization tablets including Cisco’s Cius, which was announced in June but hasn't but shipped. Cius incorporates a 7-inch display screen and runs on Google’s Android OS. Apple’s iPad tablet has also been adopted by some corporations.