Reports of HP Slate death may be greatly exaggerated

Posted by | 04/30/2010 | 17 Comments

The well-connected Sascha at netbooknews.de, who seems to have all sorts of HP Slate knowledge bottled up, has it on good authority that the reports of the HP Slate’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

Mass Effect 2 wallpaper courtesy of BioWare and EA

Per his source at HP, the report that the Slate has been axed is “very, very improbable if not even an impossible piece of news!”

Of course, Sascha’s on German time, so I don’t know how that translates into American time. That response might be from yesterday or a week from now. International time zones confuse me. Pending an official announcement from HP, we just don’t know for certain, but it is curious that there hasn’t been one yet.

Via Slashgear

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Category: Mobile

About the Author (Author Profile)

My name is Mark Sumimoto; I am Sumocat. I dabble in all areas of mobile computing, but my focus is Windows-based Tablet PCs and pen input. They’ve been part of my arsenal since 2004, and I’m proud to have pioneered the field of ink blogging, earning a spot as a Microsoft MVP for Touch and Tablets in the process. My current tools include a Fujitsu Lifebook T900, TEGA v2, and iPhone 4. Email me: sumocat [at] notebooks.com
  • ChrisRS

    @Sumocat

    quote: “Pending an official announcement from HP, we just don’t know for certain, BUT IT IS CURIOUS that there hasn’t been one yet.” (my emphasis)

    This does seem curious, BUT if you substitute “Apple” for “HP” it seems very normal.

    HP probably benefits from any “publicity,” good or bad. Right now, the reviews are not very good. If they get worse, HP will be in a position to do better than expected when/if they do release a slate.

    • acerbic

      What “reviews”? If HP cancels it just because of the howling of iFad fanbois, I’ll never buy anything from them, which is a shame since the tm2t seems pretty usable except for that stupid bulging battery design.

    • http://sumocat.blogspot.com Sumocat

      We’re thinking alike on that. By “curious”, I meant that its oddity attracts interest. I’m not sure how they’re trying to play this, but generally, it’s detrimental to let people think your product is dead. Unless they’re buying zombies, people don’t save their pennies for a product they think is dead. Why HP would let that slide is, well, curious.

  • Ben

    Yeah, the only bad impression I’ve had about the HP Slate is that the RAM, HDD and battery are not user-replaceable. If it comes with only 1 GB that is kind of limiting; similarly I’d be looking to put in a bigger SSD when/if the price is right.

    Otherwise, netbook-like performance in this form-factor at sub-$600 price, with a Wacom active/capacitive dual digitizer, HDMI out and Win7, is unrivaled in the market.

    That is, until the Hanvon B10 materializes this side of the Pacific :)

  • Jeff Jackson

    My hope is that HP was the courier partner and the source of the rumor confused the courier with the slate.

  • Mike

    I hope to God this is true and they’re still making it. I really really want an HP Slate. It would be so cruel to cancel the HP Slate a month away from release. I’ve been so depressed all day from these rumors.

  • GoodThings2Life

    I don’t care how much people want a “Light OS” for their tablets, *I* like having a full blown Windows OS on it, because I’m a heavy tech user and like having options. I want the HP Slate as its been designed, so indeed I hope the news of its demise is greatly exaggerated.

    • Eric

      Couldn’t agree more. Give me the full OS in terms of running my programs. Now, if MS wants to remove the bloat from Windows I’ll step right up now and lend a hand (oh wait, I can’t program).

    • Mike

      meh… don’t really need or want windows on a device like this for myself.
      As long as it has good community/app support, I imagine something will be available for everything I would want to do.
      Windows particularly has so much baggage and bloat with it.
      It seems to have been designed by groups of committees.
      Like English, you simply have to memorize it because it does not always make sense and can seem contradictory to what you think should be going on.
      I’d rather a dedicated, modern, purpose-built OS – with long battery life.

  • osiris

    I hope this dies like it should. This will just end up another niche market tablet in its current form.

    • acerbic

      Can you explain where that comes from, that desire to deny others a product they want, whether it’s a “niche” or a “mindless masses” market? Why do you care?

    • Riley

      Dude, it’s a niche that’s been waiting for a bone to be thrown to it since we got screwed over by the typewriter.

      We’d like to be able to write out our stuff with a stylus, or use our computer like a clipboard WITHOUT needing to get out a clumsy convertible laptop, or pay two thousand dollars for a decent machine.

      So, niche market or no, we’ve been alternately told to learn to type faster, screw off, pay more money, or by Apple at this point.

      So, yeah, most people are used to typing and want to bring that kind of experience to the tablet and hop on the bandwagon.

      But others, like me, would rather use the much more natural feeling of a writing slate that has a computer in in. Preferably with an CR that asks you how you draw your characters, so that it will convert handwriting to typeface.

  • http://www.gottabemobile.com Warner Crocker

    Fascinating. This has passed beyond the realm of “curious” to bad PR management. Either Microsoft or HP should have made some sort of response by this time. Also curious that none of the other media has picked up on this, but that could be because this is a Friday.

  • http://www.notebooks.com Xavier Lanier

    I have it on good authority that the rumor of the cancelation is false.

  • lygren

    From what I heard, it’s not only STILL ALIVE but also ENHANCED with the latest Intel DUAL CORE ATOM processor that EXTENDS BATTERY life.

  • Mike

    I can’t picture Win 7 on 1GB being that great…
    Not to mention what the battery life would probably be like.
    I don’t want 3 hours anymore.
    I am tired of carrying a wall-wart with my ‘portable’ computer.

    I am curious to see what comes of Web OS now that they have palm in pocket.
    Per palm it was always meant to be scalable for larger devices and per something I read somewhere HP indicated that they had tested its feasibility for scaling before finalizing purchase.
    This all leads me to think it would not be a long run-up time to get it shoved onto the hardware.

    In any event.
    I hope they release slates… and everyone else does too…and competition ensues… and the whole category begins to chug forward like it should.

  • tal

    1+1=2
    HP+Palm=WebOS Slate
    MS based slate canceled – yes; Reinvented – yes as well

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