14 DAY TRIAL // After the relative success of the Mesquite budget tablet, HP quietly introduced a new wallet-friendly slate in the US, dubbed the HP 8 1401, a product set to sell for only $170 / €123.
But the device-maker doesn't plan on leaving European territories uncovered, so according to new information reported by Notebook Italia, we should expect to see two new budget slates arrive on the old continent, soon.
We’re talking about the HP 7 Plus 1301 and HP 7.1, two tablets that will sell for around €100 / $139. The two models are actually the Western counterparts of the Compaq 7 and Compaq 7 Plus that were launched in China earlier this year. The technical specifications of the two tablets are pretty similar and quite interesting, especially in light of the super affordable price.
The HP 7 Plus 1301 and HP 7.1 both measure 192.5 x 122 x 7.1 mm / 7.57 x 4.8 x 0.2 inches and weight a meager 295g / 0.65 lbs and, a characteristic of HP, they will be available with a white (with silver insertion) paint job.
Under the hood, there’s an Allwinner A31s SoC with a quad-core ARM Cortex A7 processor clocked at 1GHz supported by 1GB of RAM and backed-up by 8GB of internal memory (expandable via microSD).
Both models run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, but HP has been known to be pretty sluggish with updates, so don’t expect Android 4.4. KitKat to arrive too soon on these budget machines.
There’s a slight difference between the two models, in the screen department, as the HP 7.1 has a TN 7-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, while the HP 7 Plus incorporates a 7-inch IPS panel with the same resolution.
Anyway, if you find the information above interesting, you should know the tablets are set to arrive in Europe this April. The HP 7 Plus tablet is already listed on the HP France website for a €119 / $165 a pop, so that means its less impressive brother will come cheaper, maybe with a very attractive €99 / $138.