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HP Slate 500 Unboxing Pictures

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We’ve been following the shipping stories about the HP Slate 500 since word dropped that they are finally on their way. Over on the TabletPCReview.com forums, user heatlesssun has not only gotten his hands on one of the HP Slate 500s that have started shipping but he’s posted up a few unboxing pictures as well as some early thoughts. We all know there’s a lot of expectations for this device and I’m sure we’re going to hear more in the next few weeks.

Inkers interested in this device might want to read through the thread and beg for more info as he reports there are some issues with the stylus but he’s working through them.

21 Comments

21 Comments

  1. Matt Kunz

    12/02/2010 at 9:45 pm

    Hi Gang,

    I received my HP Slate 500 today and I have some first thoughts. Excellent build quality: glass screen, inking seems just like the HP 2710,30, and 40 to me. It does have palm rejection as I didn’t have any problem inking with my palm on the screen. This size really prevents your palm from resting on it much anyway. It has a nice screen, good colors, could be a little brighter, but I would say it is about as bright as the HP 2700 series tablets. The capacitive screen has excellent touch response, much better than my Dell XT2. Pinch and zoom is not quite as fluid as the iPad, but a lot of that has to do with the Atom processor and the graphics driver. I have it plugged into my Dell 1080P 23″ monitor and it registers the highest resolution as well. All of my bluetooth accessories connected fine too. The onscreen keyboard works very well because of the excellent capacitive screen and the inking is no worse than my Dell XT2. All of the concerns about inking on this are mute as far as I am concerned. Youtube videos play fine and the digital stylus is all aluminum and very good quality. The screen is also pressure sensitive which is something I didn’t expect. The Windows 7 User Experience Rating is 2.5 which is about on par with this Atom processor. My Dell XT2 with a 128GB SSD is only 3.2 with 5GB RAM and a Dual Core processor, so this isn’t too bad. A larger processor would have been nice. I am going back to college right now and am trying to decide if I can use this as my daily computer. I will work it hard for the next two weeks and make a decision to sell my Dell XT2 or keep it. The only niggle that I have noticed is when using an external monitor the screen flickers when changing between IE browser pages. This is probably a graphics driver glitch and will hopefully be fixed ASAP. So far I am thoroughly impressed with the Slate, for anyone that does a lot of inking but doesn’t want to lug around a full tablet pc I would highly recommend this. If anyone has questions, please ask.

    • Jimbras99

      12/02/2010 at 11:13 pm

      Fantastic! What about the weight and battery life? Greetings from Portugal

      • Techno-Freak

        01/03/2011 at 10:19 pm

        Weighs 1.5lbs, and it gets an average of 5 hours of battery life.

  2. GoodThings2Life

    12/03/2010 at 2:03 am

    Nice to see others are getting theirs, so hopefully mine will arrive soon! I’m glad to see the actual hands-on reviews are more favorable than some of the early speculation on it. :)

  3. rex

    12/03/2010 at 2:55 am

    How is the screen calibration? When you ink right up to the edge or reach for the windows close button does the cursor drift to the edge of the screen? This was a recurring issue with the 2700 series screens.

  4. Anonymous

    12/03/2010 at 4:09 pm

    Warner, minor typo: The guy’s screen name is “heatlesssun” not “heartlessum” (: Read his stuff and he deserves props for his contributions (including this one) to the tablet pc family.

  5. Matt Kunz

    12/03/2010 at 11:51 pm

    The weight is 1.5 lbs. It is the same as the iPad, but feels a little bit heavier because it is smaller and a tad thicker. I am getting about 5 hours of battery life on medium setting, about 4:20 on high performance, high brightness. The calibration is excellent! It is very accurate even to the edge of the screen. N-Trig did an excellent job, I am really surprised. I love everything about it other than the speed. I wish it had a faster processor. It is almost fast enough to use for my main mobile system though. I am sure that someone will release something better next year, but for right now I have no problem recommending this tablet to my customers.

  6. Annette Skinner

    12/04/2010 at 2:15 pm

    i ordered mine on October 28th & have yet to receive it. So, I am curious when everyone else ordered theirs.

    • Matt Kunz

      12/06/2010 at 8:34 pm

      I orderded mine on October 29th.

  7. Giacomo Davide Fumagalli

    12/04/2010 at 3:46 pm

    @Matt Kunz: during the first startup you’ve had the opportunity to choose the language of the operating system or it is in English only?

  8. Giacomo Davide Fumagalli

    12/04/2010 at 3:47 pm

    PS: what about the GBM Forum? I cannot enter in it since some days, it is me or what?

    • Steve S

      12/04/2010 at 9:04 pm

      Giacomo: No, it’s not you. The GBM forums were apparently severely damaged by a hacker attack. See http://www.tabletPCBuzz.com

  9. dstrauss

    12/06/2010 at 2:41 pm

    I’ve been using the SLT500 since last Thursday (4 days), and I am truly amazed at the quality of build, good looks (sorry Apple fans, but this one looks good too), and overall performance. This is NOT just a keyboardless netbook. Touch controls are snappy and very responsive (other than “pinch to zoom” which is sluggish compared to my recently eBayed iPad). The combination of the processor, 2gb ram, and 64gb SSD make it on par with my Thinkpad X61s, which is hig praise indeed.

    Inking is everything I missed on the ipad, and nearly as good as my 2730p. The “nearly” is only because I’m having to learn to work with a completely smooth glossy screen. There is a slight texture to my 2730p which gives you a more paper-like feel, but I wouldn’t change that and lose any of the smoothness of the touch interface.

    I am tired of all of the trashing of Windows 7 touch interface. Is it as good as iPad; no. Why – because that is all iPad can do. You should increase icon and scroll bar sizes, and smaller elements are tough to touch, but you can adapt, and then you ahve unlimited software ability in a package even smaller than the ipad.

    For all my hard work (and the cost of buying Apps), a stylus is a “no go” on teh iPad. Noe offense Warner, but I do not want my text looking like magic marker on a poster board. I guess I’m too spoiled to OneNote on a tablet pc, but I need to have printable notes that are readable (and don’t use 50 words per page) and the ability to search those notes.

  10. Matt Kunz

    12/06/2010 at 8:42 pm

    @dstrauss: I agree 100%. Would I have liked a faster processor and 4GB of RAM? Of course, HP would have owned the Holiday season if they had beefed it up a little, but I understand the need to keep a minimal level of battery life in such a small full blown computer. The only con I have with the handwriting recognition is the clicking of the N-Trig pen on the glass screen. It is not very quiet. The stylus tip seems to have a spring and moves which causes a clicking. That is a very small quibble. The screen could be a couple of notches brighter, but I think they used the same screens as the 2700 series tablets without the added textured feel. I don’t find those very bright either. I am almost thinking of ditching all of my computers and using just the Slate. I don’t need anything more than web browsing, Office apps and email. If the processor and RAM were bumped up a bit it would be a no brainer decision. I had mine for 2 hours and my wife took it, so I have to wait until January to get mine. I guess I will live vicariously through all of you that have yours now. I have an iPad as well and will probably be selling it.

  11. dstrauss

    12/07/2010 at 7:41 pm

    Matt: I am completely surprised at how good a device the SLT500 is. The pen does make a lot more noise than my 2730p, but that is starting to go away as I use it more. If they could maintain the battery life but bump the memory to 4gb and an Atom dual core, it truly would have owned this Christmas. I think the trick will be to go to a slightly larger screen and stuff the rest of the space with more battery (ala the iPad – if you’ve ever seen the tear down it seems to be 60% battery in that case and a very small system board).

  12. Matt Kunz

    12/16/2010 at 8:56 pm

    I might have spoken too soon about the slate. I love it but just started noticing big scratches on the screen from the stylus. I thought this was a glass screen? I have a call into HP to get some answers. I won’t be keeping mine if they used a plastic screen. Hopefully it is just a defect with mine. Is anyone else noticing scratches?

    • Anonymous

      12/19/2010 at 6:03 pm

      I received confirmation from HP that it does have a strengthened glass screen and should not scratch. I might have a defective unit and will contact HP on Monday to get some answers.

    • Chris

      01/03/2011 at 10:47 pm

      Matt – did you find out about the screen from HP? A delicate screen would definitely be a deal-breaker for our use. Thanks.

  13. Chris

    01/03/2011 at 10:52 pm

    I’m hearing rumors that the delay in shipping additional HP Slate 500’s is a quality issues with one of their suppliers. Anyone know anything about it? I ordered my Slate in early November and haven’t received it yet. The due date just keeps getting pushed back.

  14. burningorange

    01/03/2011 at 11:48 pm

    i’ve finally received my slate after 3 months (ordered 22 october, delivered 29 december). after using for a few days, i’m very very very pleased with it. it is an excellent compromise on the spectrum between the ipad content consuming device and the windows general purpose computing laptop. the processor is a little slow, but allows for decent battery life, and is wisely well complemented by the broadcom crystal hd video chip decoder, the 2GB ram and the ssd. office runs like a dream, i particularly have always wanted onenote with pen+multitouch on this (i have a dell xt2 and love it too). i enjoy simultaneously reading pdf’s in full screen with adobe or pdf annotator, taking notes in onenote with pen+keyboard for mathematical expressions and a browser. i use switcher+autohotkey to remap the “home” button to an “expose” like switching between windows. it all runs very well and i can even use the whole device with fingers only. i hardly miss the keyboard. after upgrading to windows ultimate, installing the multilingual recognition, i can ink in french, japanese and english (impossible on any other device). skype video with the inbuilt cameras is very useful for work and family, the camera on the back is useful recording field notes. very very well thought out. it only needs a gps for photo/video automated geotagging. this is as close as we can get to the infamous courier device for now.

    the only downsides are:
    – firefox is a little slow (bloatware) but with some about:config optimisations, it runs acceptably.
    – 64 gb is too small for my liking (it’s already full).
    – the pen does not have an eraser mode ! and it clicks too loudly.

    i have no problems with the screen. no scratches. nada.

    background: i’ve had the st4110 slate, the ls800, the oqo 02, the dell xt2. this hp slate 500 is what i’ve been looking for ! two thumbs up.

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