HP's Slate 500 tablet goes on sale for $800
Posted on by Agam Shah, IDG News Service
Hewlett-Packard on Friday mentioned its highly predicted Slate 500 tablet—the company’s 1st these device—is now obtainable for obtain.
Targeted at companies, the tablet will come with an 8.9-inch display and run Microsoft’s Windows 7 Skilled OS. It expenses $799 and is right away obtainable in the U.S. by means of HP’s website and channel partners.
The Slate 500 was first intended like a consumer products when HP announced it in January, but the firm reassessed its options for that gadget soon after acquiring Palm for $1.2 billion in April. HP is now targeting the Slate 500 at company buyers who want a handheld gadget and are familiar using the Windows OS and workplace productivity apps,
Office 2010 Key, explained Carol Hess-Nickels, director of around the world enterprise notebook advertising and marketing at HP’s Personalized Techniques Group.
HP strategies to release a separate tablet for customers using the WebOS mobile software, which was acquired from Palm. The WebOS tablet, which is however unnamed, will likely be developed for routines like surfing the world wide web, viewing movies, taking part in games and reading through e-books, HP has explained. It will likely be released in 2011, an HP spokesman said.
The Slate 500 provides people capabilities but also is designed to link to servers to record and pull info in true time, Hess-Nickels stated. Numerous enterprises use Windows seven, and also the unit fits simply into IT infrastructures, she mentioned.
“As we speak to organization customers … they’ve advised us they need to get a frequent image all across their gadgets,” Hess-Nickels stated.
The tablet weighs about one.5 pounds (0.68 kilograms), so customers can effortlessly carry it to file transactions or acquire inventory. With VPN (virtual non-public network) help, workers can securely connect to corporate networks.
Designed for “moderate subject material development,” the Slate 500 comes with multitouch and pen-input abilities, and incorporates a software program keyboard for information input, Hess-Nickels stated.
The tablet has two cameras—a 3-megapixel camera with the again along with a VGA digital camera from the front—which may be utilised for videoconferencing. A Broadcom graphics accelerator offers 720p video clip playback.
The Slate has an Intel Atom Z540 processor, which runs at a clock velocity of 1.68GHz. It comes using a 64GB solid-state push and 2GB of RAM. A USB port aids connect exterior storage on the system.
The tablet offers about five several hours of battery lifestyle and recharges inside the dock. The dock contains USB and HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) ports and a headphone jack.
HP’s Slate 500 will only be obtainable inside the U.S. for now, an HP spokeswoman stated. HP didn't announce worldwide availability but will assess expanding into other markets, she explained.
The device will compete with other business tablets such as Cisco’s Cius, which was announced in June but has not yet shipped. Cius includes a 7-inch screen and runs on Google’s Android OS. Apple’s iPad tablet has also been adopted by some organizations.