HP's Slate 500 tablet goes on sale for $800
Posted on by Agam Shah, IDG News Service
Hewlett-Packard on Friday stated its highly expected Slate 500 tablet—the company’s 1st such device—is now offered for buy.
Targeted at companies, the tablet will have an eight.9-inch display screen and run Microsoft’s Windows seven Specialist OS. It costs $799 and is right away offered within the U.S. by means of HP’s web site and channel partners.
The Slate 500 was very first intended like a client merchandise when HP announced it in January, but the firm reassessed its plans for that device after obtaining Palm for $1.2 billion in April. HP is now focusing on the Slate 500 at business buyers who will need a handheld unit and therefore are familiar with the Windows OS and office productivity applications, explained Carol Hess-Nickels, director of around the world company notebook advertising and marketing at HP’s Individual Techniques Group.
HP strategies to release a separate tablet for shoppers with the WebOS cellular software, which was acquired from Palm. The WebOS tablet, which is however unnamed, will probably be intended for actions like browsing the net,
Office Enterprise 2007, observing motion pictures, enjoying video games and studying e-books, HP has said. It will be launched in 2011, an HP spokesman said.
The Slate 500 presents people capabilities but additionally is made to connect to servers to file and pull info in actual time, Hess-Nickels said. Numerous enterprises use Windows 7, as well as the unit suits quickly into IT infrastructures, she said.
“As we speak to enterprise consumers … they’ve advised us they want to possess a frequent image all across their devices,” Hess-Nickels said.
The tablet weighs about 1.five lbs (0.68 kilograms), so users can simply have it to file transactions or take inventory. With VPN (virtual private network) assistance, staff can securely link to corporate networks.
Designed for “moderate content creation,” the Slate 500 arrives with multitouch and pen-input abilities, and consists of a computer software keyboard for information input, Hess-Nickels explained.
The tablet has two cameras—a 3-megapixel camera in the back plus a VGA digital camera from the front—which could possibly be utilised for videoconferencing. A Broadcom graphics accelerator delivers 720p video clip playback.
The Slate has an Intel Atom Z540 processor, which runs at a clock pace of 1.68GHz. It arrives with a 64GB solid-state push and 2GB of RAM. A USB port aids link external storage on the system.
The tablet offers about five several hours of battery lifestyle and recharges from the dock. The dock includes USB and HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) ports plus a headphone jack.
HP’s Slate 500 will only be accessible inside the U.S. for now, an HP spokeswoman said. HP didn't announce throughout the world availability but will consider expanding into other markets, she mentioned.
The gadget will compete with other company tablets including Cisco’s Cius, which was announced in June but has not nevertheless delivered. Cius contains a 7-inch display and runs on Google’s Android OS. Apple’s iPad tablet has also been adopted by some organizations.