HP Slate 500 Review

The HP Slate 500 is a tablet developed for business users and while it doesn’t give the same performance and the user experience as Apple’s tablets, it has a potential in the business market. Apple has released the new iPad and the company still owns the consumer tablet market, with millions of iPads sold each month. With a release price of $799, the Slate 500 isn’t an affordable device and clearly in the tablet race, it has a steep road to climb.

The Slate 500 uses Intel Atom Z540 1.8GHz chip and 2GB of RAM, as well as 64GB of internal storage (NAND flash). It comes with numerous preinstalled business apps, a couple of camera and a few other goodies. Just like your notebook, it runs Windows 7, which allows you to run many desktop apps. With the iPad, users are stuck with whatever Apple allows and as we all know the company is a bit finicky about what apps we can use. Of course, Flash run flawlessly on Windows 7 and you can’t say that for low-end Android tablets and the iPad. Too many business presentations fall by the wayside due to the absence of Flash on the iPad and you won’t experience the same issue with the Slate 500.

Unfortunately, there are a few irritating things with the Slate 500, the screen goes dark when it changes orientation and new users will have a sinking feeling that the tablet has crashed. You can resize the image using pinching gesture, although it won’t be as smooth as the iPad. Images change size slowly and when they do change, the result might be disappointing. On the iPad, webpages simply pop up into place, but on the Slate 500, they don’t appear immediately on the center of the screen.

The HP Slate is not a clunky device, but compared to the iPad, it’s more difficult to use. But, the availability of many business-oriented features and the flexibility offered by the Windows 7 may appeal some business-oriented users.