14 DAY TRIAL // The HP Slate can be seen as one of the more unusual device projects of the past several months, considering it was repeatedly previewed and presumed dead. Most recently, after a time when the market was sure it had been scrapped, the tablet reincarnated as the HP Slate 500. Meanwhile, other manufacturers have been designing products of their own. One of said products, recently spotted in China, is somewhat similar, in looks at least, to HP's offer.
Essentially, the newcomer is build as a 10-inch Windows 7 tablet PC, which already makes it a bit larger than the one it is being compared with, whose display size is of 8.9 inches. Nevertheless, the overall specifications, starting with the panel itself and going all the way to the core of the electronic, are definitely nothing to be frowned upon.
At the heart of the slate lies and Intel Atom N450 central processing unit, the same chip used in most Pine Trail netbooks and whose clock speed is of 1.66GHz. The exact memory and graphics solutions are not pointed out, but it is revealed that a regular USB port is present, as well as a mini version, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a LAN port, WiFi, 3G, an accelerometer and a VGA port. What's more, the device is bundled with a free stand and has a built-in webcam, which will easily take pictures and, provided the graphics solution can cope with it, assist in videoconferencing or multimedia playback.
The display will be the biggest asset of the Chinese tablet. For one, it has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, which hints at a better than average video controller inside. The other core capability of this panel is its support for resistive multitouch input, which allows good stylus recognition, a feature most useful considering how intricate chinese characters are. Unfortunately, pricing and availability details have not been elaborated upon.