14 DAY TRIAL // Despite the repeated rumors that the Windows 7 HP Slate was over and done with, a recent video actually seems to disprove these assumptions, as it seems to show such a HP Slate, though it is just a prototype that, predictably, needs some more work.
As some may remember, HP was one of, if not the first company to preview a tablet several months ago, around the same time as Apple launched the iPad.
Said slate was supposed to be a Windows-loaded mobile device but later went through several episodes of being scrapped and re-imagined.
There are also concerns that the Windows 7 OS is not exactly suitable for such keyboard-less electronics.
The video recently posted on YouTube, as revealed by John Gruber, may or may not be a fake, but the folks over at Engadget seem to think it is genuine.
For one, the overall design appears to correspond to whatever meager previous sightings were made in the past.
Apparently, the time it takes to boot is decent and even the performance during flash playback is more or less satisfactory.
On the other hand, operating based on touch inputs alone is not exactly the strong suit of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.
Granted, the protective video cover was on the display itself during the shooting of the video, so that may have impacted upon the responsiveness and accuracy of the touch recognition.
Other specifications that were pointed out include a back-facing camera, an SD card slot, a USB port and even a key that can causes the on-screen keyboard to pop up.
Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing exactly when this product will come to market, though the prototype did, at least, seem to only need some final touches.
The tablet also supposedly comes with a stylus, though it was not included in this particular video.