HP launched some of its voice enabled tablets in India earlier this month. Here at the Mobile World Congress we got a chance to check out some of the new products on offer. One of the most interesting products that HP brought to the trade show was its new Slate 8 Pro tablet. What sets this tablet apart from the hoards of Android tablets is its 4:3 display with a resolution of 1600×900 pixels. Let’s take a better look at the tablet then.
Video:
httpv://youtu.be/uUH_oDLZP_M
The tablet has a fairly large bezel above and below the screen and sports an HP logo at the bottom. Buttons are of the onscreen variety and hence with the screen switched off, you get a tablet that looks decidedly like an iPad Mini. What really caught our eye was how the tablet’s sides gently curved towards the center making it that much easier to grip.
Most of the buttons on the tablet are placed at the back. While the tablet weighs in at a hefty 453 grams, it is quite slim at just 0.39 inches. Most of the ports on the tablet are placed along the lower edge. This is where you find the micro USB, micro HDMI ports. There’s a 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom next to the micro USB port. Flanking the IO outputs are two speaker ports finished in red that looks quite nice in contrast to the white colored tablet.
The back of the tablet is made of soft touch material that feels rather fantastic when held. The quality of materials used is very premium and it definitely feels like a high end tablet. Under the hood is a 1.8Ghz Tegra 4 processor that is paired with 1GB of RAM. Users get 16GB of built in storage that can be expanded via the microSD card slot.
The camera on the tablet is an 8MP autofocus capable unit. Placed next to it is the LED flash. As is clearly visible from the image above, the buttons are placed flush with the tablet which makes it a bit hard to activate the volume rocker. On the right side is the slot for the card reader.
In our brief impressions with the HP Slate 8 Pro, we found it to be quite a compelling piece of hardware. The design however is rather unoriginal due to its unashamed copying of Apple’s iPad Mini. That said, the combination of a high resolution 4:3 display and Android 4.2, might make it attractive for users looking for a great reading experience on the go and at a budget price.