Hewlett-Packard, a company that may have experienced the most notorious crash and burn in the tablet space with the TouchPad has returned with a low cost Android device, the HP Slate 7, which it has introduced at the Mobile World Congress.
Unlike the last time when it used technology it had acquired from Palm as the operating system HP has gone mainstream and will be using the Android Jelly Bean operating system. In fact the company goes out of its way to tout the devices relationship with Google, talking about how it is the ideal platform for what it calls the Google Experience in its press release.
The $169 Slate 7 is the first of what appears to be a family of different products HP will be delivering that will target different market segments, according to a company executive. The company’s emphasis on its alliance with Google and promoting Google products and services also indicates a trend for the future, and one that might be a bad sign for Microsoft, which also has a partnership with HP. HP recently introduced a Chromebook, a notebook that run’s Google’s Chrome OS.
The Slate 7 is powered by an ARM dual core Cortex-A9 1.6GHz processor and will feature a 3 MP backward facing camera and a VGA front facing camera. The 7-inch display has a 1024 x 600 resolution and the tablet will feature 8GB of storage that is expandable via a microSD card.
HP already has a high end tablet which competes with the other 10-inch offerings from everybody from Microsoft, Samsung and Apple. Now it is seeking to establish itself against the iPad Minis, Nexus 7 and Kindle Fires. Hopefully HP can establish itself in this space, making the market more competitive.
