HP announces $169 Android-based Slate 7 tablet

Posted:
in iPad edited January 2014
Windows PC maker Hewlett-Packard announced on Monday it will get into the Android tablet market with a new 7-inch device priced at $169.

Slate


The HP Slate 7, announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, is marketed as an "affordable Android Jelly Bean consumer tablet." With a 7-inch diagonal screen and weight of 13 ounces, it will also be the first tablet with HP's embedded Beats Audio.

The device, which will launch in the U.S. in April, will be powered by a 1.6-gigahertz ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 chip, and its display has High-aperture-ratio Field Fringe Switching, which offers wide viewing angles. The tablet will also pack a 3-megapixel rear camera and forward facing VGA camera.

"To address the growing interest in tablets among consumers and businesses alike, HP will offer a range of form factors and leverage an array of operating systems," said Alberto Torres, senior vice president, Mobility Global Business Unit, HP. "Our new HP Slate 7 on Android represents a compelling entry point for consumer tablets, while our ground-breaking, business-ready HP ElitePad on Windows 8 is ideal for enterprises and governments. Both deliver the service and support people expect from HP."

HP also plans to push the "Google experience" with the newly announced HP Chromebook, a notebook running Google's Chrome OS. HP's new products aim to provide customers "easy access to Google Mobile services."

The news comes as LG announced it has acquired webOS from HP and will use it to power its own high-definition television sets. HP first acquired the lightweight webOS platform when it purchased smartphone maker Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010.

HP then developed webOS for tablets and introduced the TouchPad in 2011. But the TouchPad got off to a slow start and the company quickly abandoned the hardware that was originally intended to compete with Apple's iPad.

Now with the announcement of the Slate 7, HP has revealed its plans to embrace both Microsoft's Windows 8 and Google's Android with next-generation touchscreen devices. Priced at $169, the Slate 7 will undercut Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD in the 7-inch tablet market, while it's $10 more than Amazon's entry-level Kindle Fire without a high-resolution screen.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 44
    drblankdrblank Posts: 3,385member
    $169 yet another no profit Android tablet?
  • Reply 2 of 44
    But its HP!! They can make a profitable Android table for themselves I think :)
  • Reply 3 of 44
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post



    HP will offer a range of form factors and leverage an array of operating systems," said Alberto Torres, senior vice president, Mobility Global Business Unit, HP.


     


    var os = new Array();


    os[0] = "Jelly Bean";


    os[1] = "Windows 8";

  • Reply 4 of 44

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by superjunaid View Post



    But its HP!! They can make a profitable Android table for themselves I think image


     


    we can sell for a loss and make it up in volume?  


     


    Meg.. this isn't an Ebay startup mode company... It's Hewlett Frickin Packard. (Compaq, DEC, Tandem, Palm etc.)  There won't be any valuation buzz on this.


     


    $169?   Without an ecosystem,  this is just another step down the spiral 'race to the bottom' staircase.   Google owns the base ecosystem, HP needs to buy the parts from Samsung, and Amazon, B&N, Netflix will get the usage revenue.   Apple... will be nicked in that they won't be able to sell that $329 device _THIS_ year, but will have to defer that anticipated purchase till next year, when the frustrated buyer gives up and gets a 10" iPad


     


    7" isn't 5, isn't 8, and definitely isn't 10/11/13.   It's not portable enough, not corporate enough, and HP isn't cool enough to pull this off just on reputation.

  • Reply 5 of 44
    Price to HW they are certainly being competitive but it does seen unlikely HP is turning a profit on this device.
  • Reply 6 of 44
    I could remember when everybody was mad that apple
    Didn't call the iPad the (iSlate). Glad they didn't because
    That name just sounds corny to me now.
  • Reply 7 of 44


    HP marketing; "Throw a bunch of stuff at the wall. Hopefully something will stick"


    Meg; "Will we make any money"


    HP marketing; "How can you put a cost on exposure?"


    Meg; "How will we make money in the future with this?"


    HP marketing; "Well if we had an excellent eco-system, we would have customer retention. We don't so we won't upgrade the OS so the user has to buy the latest device to get the latest OS"


    Meg; "How long do you think we can do that before we piss people off?"


    HP marketing; "Samsung has been doing it for years and they have the most market share"


    Meg; "So Samsung is making profit?"


    HP marketing; "No, No, No, Apple is making all the profit. In fact their profit is more than all the mobile phone/tablet divisions of other companies combined"


    Meg; "So why are we doing this again?"

  • Reply 8 of 44
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by GadgetCanada View Post


    HP marketing; "Throw a bunch of stuff at the wall. Hopefully something will stick"


    Meg; "Will we make any money"



    What makes you think such things originate with their marketing department?

  • Reply 9 of 44
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member
    yet once again HP shows us why it is doomed:

    1. acquire a promising independent OS with great potential to power a wide range of products, and then fail to invest in its full development, leaving it atrophied instead.
    2. then dump it cheap to some Asian OEM.
    3. and revert to relying totally on Google and MS OS' for products.
    4. thereby joining the profitless Race To The Bottom where every HP product is a mere commodity up against cutthroat competition.
    5. starting with the $169 Slate 7 tablet and an HP Chromebook just announced.

    in just a few years it will be all of what's left of HP itself that gets dumped cheap to some Asian OEM.
  • Reply 10 of 44
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member


    I think I might get one of these instead of the iPad Mini I was considering. I mean if AI thinks it's newsworthy enough to put on the front page as an announcement  then there must be something to it, right? 

  • Reply 11 of 44
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post


    I think I might get one of these instead of the iPad Mini I was considering. I mean if AI thinks it's newsworthy enough to put on the front page as an announcement  then there must be something to it, right? 



    They should be labeling these stories as reports from Mobile World Congress 

  • Reply 12 of 44
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    I wonder if dumping WebOS so quickly was a bit short-sighted. I don't recall they tried to market it very much, and they shut it down halfway through the first model run at the first sign of trouble. Many successful product lines took a revision or two to take hold in the marketplace. I guess that's HP for you.
  • Reply 13 of 44
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    HP almost had to release a tablet. There is plenty of evidence that tablets will play an increasing role in computing - particularly corporate computing.

    Don't count HP out. They have a very strong position in the Enterprise - and have preferred supplier agreements with many customers. And the price is quite attractive. I could picture them having some success with this if the product is any good (it is hard to tell simply from looking at the specs). Time will tell.
  • Reply 14 of 44

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post



    Price to HW they are certainly being competitive but it does seen unlikely HP is turning a profit on this device.


    Is it? I think it isn't. HP has 0 buying power, so they get 0 advantages over Apple and other OEMs, in fact they get penalized.


     


    What do they offer, here? Vanilla android (good on the surface, but 0 $ invest on apps or ecosystem and HP needs a differentiator to be seen as a viable android alternative = fail), low medium meh build quality (less than nexus 7), 2 cortex a9 with 0 engineering by HP to make them better (against the quad on the nexus 7) and since they are on the same foot (bad phone applications, low quality fragmented ecosystem), Screen Vs screen matters, and HP takes a beating.


     


    What am I missing? 30 dollars makes up for it?


     


    I guess it doesn't.

  • Reply 15 of 44


    does anyone see any similarities, this is why lawsuits happen ... 

  • Reply 16 of 44
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member


    Wonder what Microsoft thinks about this.  Personally I think they need to worry about Google more than Apple does.  Cheap Android tablets from PC OEM's can't be good for Windows 8.

  • Reply 17 of 44


    There not bad looking...the red one looks nice. They remind me of another tablet though. Hmmmimage

  • Reply 18 of 44

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ClaudiusMaximus View Post


    does anyone see any similarities, this is why lawsuits happen ... 



    It really did remind me of the iPad; chrome logo in center, text bottom center, camera same location, lock button same location, volume... 


    Reminds me of how similar all the smartphones where before the iPhone.

  • Reply 19 of 44


    Another one to toss onto the pile. 

  • Reply 20 of 44
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Is it? I think it isn't. HP has 0 buying power, so they get 0 advantages over Apple and other OEMs, in fact they get penalized.

    What do they offer, here? Vanilla android (good on the surface, but 0 $ invest on apps or ecosystem and HP needs a differentiator to be seen as a viable android alternative = fail), low medium meh build quality (less than nexus 7), 2 cortex a9 with 0 engineering by HP to make them better (against the quad on the nexus 7) and since they are on the same foot (bad phone applications, low quality fragmented ecosystem), Screen Vs screen matters, and HP takes a beating.

    What am I missing? 30 dollars makes up for it?

    I guess it doesn't.

    Your reasoning is sound but you're missing that I said the price to the HW is competitive. I made no comment about anything else. If I were to guess I would say this will fail and that people will much prefer to buy a Kindle Fire, Nexus or Samsung tablet, even if costs a little more.
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