HP Slate tablet video spotted on the Interwebs, fails to impress
A video of an authentic looking HP Slate tablet has been posted on YouTube, which has roused grumblings from those expecting more from the wave of iPad rivals coming this year.
This week we've seen two very different tablets from HP and Dell, which have met passionate reactions from the blogosphere. We already know that a 8.9-inch HP Slate running Windows 7 is real -- it was announced at CES 2010 and official videos of one were released earlier in the year. But another video is now online which purports to be a prototype of the Slate.
The video -- whose veracity HP won't confirm or deny, as the Slate is an 'unannounced product' -- shows a number of features, such as a SD card on the side, keyboard button for onscreen keyboard, microphone, volume buttons, USB port, camera, home key and headphone jack. Back in April, we reported the real HP Slate would carry a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, a 3-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA-resolution camera on the front. Have a butchers' here:
Is it real? Rupert Goodwins of our learned sister site ZDNet UK certainly thinks so, as it has the appearance of an authentic finished prototype and he didn't believe anybody would have bothered to put that much effort in creating a fake. It also looked similar to the Slate, which HP showed off in the earlier official video:
Charles Arthur of the Guardian is emphatically not a fan. He criticised the fact it would be lighter than the iPad, as it would mean a smaller battery, and that it needed a force-reboot key. He also panned the 32 seconds it took for the Windows 7 device to boot up. For good measure he stuck the boot in on the browsing experience, saying it looked unresponsive and laggy. We find it hard to disagree.
The debut of a new 7-inch Dell tablet at a recent Oracle event received a rather more enthusiastic response. ZDNet UK reported Michael Dell whipping out the Android-based tablet during his keynote -- it could be a device called the Dell Looking Glass, which CNET.com reported on back in April.
The 7-inch screen means it likely be marketed as a rival to the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, as opposed to the strange smart phone/tablet hybrid the 5-inch Dell Streak turned out to be.
Do you think the world needs two Dell tablets? And what do you think about the prototype HP Slate in the video? You might like to compare it to what we saw of the Samsung Galaxy Tab earlier today. We'll be interested to hear what you think.
Image credit: Engadget