The HP Slate 8 Pro is another try by the PC behemoth to bring an Android tablet to the market. The HP Slate 7 was released a few months back, but has failed to gain any traction, the same as most Android tablets.
From benchmarks leaked on the HP Slate 8 Pro, it seems like it will be a slightly larger tablet with some improved specs. The eight inch tablet market is currently dominated by the iPad Mini, with HP’s failure in the tablet market so far, it will be hard to take on the Mini and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8.0.
The HP Slate 8 Pro does boast some impressive specs, with a 1.8GHz Tegra 4 processor, one of the first we have ever seen, backed with 2GB of RAM. The display will be 1,600×1,200, giving the HP Slate 8 Pro a 4:3 aspect ratio, the same as Apple’s iPads.
Android 4.2.2 will run on the HP Slate 8 Pro and HP is one of the only providers to not skin the tablet in any way. We may see some HP bloatware but nothing that cannot be put into a folder and forgot about.
The HP Slate 8 Pro does seem like a top end device and one we would like to get our hands on. HP has a simple and cheap design with almost everything they create, but we hope this will be able to compete against the Nexus 7 and iPad Mini on a design front.
As we said before, HP has had one of the worst records in the mobile world, buying Palm and then destroying it, developing webOS and then selling it to LG and not having any success in the phone or tablet market.
The HP Slate 8 Pro may be a great device, but if HP cannot up their game in the mobile market, either through great advertising or just getting the word out that these are top devices, they may see the mobile market disappear as the PC market shrinks.