The new HP Slate

The New HP Slate

HP on Friday launched the HP Slate 500, a tablet PC aimed at the enterprise. 

Priced at US$799, the Slate has a 3MP still camera and a VGA webcam and can Windows 7 Professional 32.

Tech Specs for the HP Slate 500

HP's new tablet has an Intel Atom Z540 processor with a 512 KB L2 cache and a 533 MHz front-side bus. It uses the Intel System Controller Hub US15W chipset.

Onboard memory maxes out at 2 GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

For storage, the HP Slate 500 uses a solid state flash drive of up to 64 GB. It can use select external CD/DVD R/RW drives that plug in through its single USB 2.0 port.

The HP Slate 500 has an 8.9-inch WSVGA wide-viewing angle multitouch screen that accepts pen and finger input. For graphics, the tablet uses an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 and a Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM) Crystal HD Enhanced Video Accelerator.

The tablet comes with one combo stereo headphone and mic jack, an integrated microphone, and a power connector. It features high-definition audio and integrated stereo speakers.

It can communicate over 802.11b/g/n networks as well as Bluetooth 3.0.

The base configuration comes with a two-cell battery that offers about five hours of battery life. It weighs 1.5 pounds. The tablet measures about 9.2 by 0.6 by 5.9 inches.

The HP Slate 500 comes with HP Slate Camera, Evernote, HP Support Assistant, Adobe Reader and Adobe PDF preinstalled.

Some Thoughts...

Unlike the iPad the Slate is targeted more towards the corporate market rater than the mainstream consumer. 

"The HP Slate 500 will attract the interest of vertical industries such as construction, healthcare and engineering services that have used ruggedized tablets," Angela McIntyre, a research director at Gartner 

"Steve Jobs is right; it's all about the apps, but it's also about the apps on PCs, and there are some apps on PCs that you aren't going to get right now on the iPad," O'Donnell said. "Business applications for the iPad are limited."

The HP Slate is a very good device and is quite notably aimed at corporate clients. The $800 USD price tag might be a little excessive however.