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The “other” HP Slate specs

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The specs for HP’s upcoming slate have leaked, and not surprisingly, HP is weighing their new slate against the iPad. But as far as I’m concerned, the slate they should be weighing it against is their old slate, the TC1100.

Pulling from the high-end of their old spec sheet, here’s what I’ve gathered.

  • Display: 10.4-inch XGA TFT, 1024 x 768 resolution, 160-degree ultra wide viewing angle, Wacom pen input, screen rotation button
  • Processor: Intel® Pentium® M Ultra Low Voltage 1.2-GHz
  • Graphics: Intel 855PM Chipset with rich graphics from NVIDIA – GeForce 4 Go 420 32MB (4X AGP)
  • Storage: 5400RPM HHD up to 60GB
  • RAM: 512 MB of SDRAM upgradeable to 2 GB
  • Connectivity: 802.11a/b/g WLAN, Bluetooth, and IR
  • Ports: Dock connector, PC Card, SD card slot, analog VGA, 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack, 2.5 mm headset jack, 3.5 mm microphone jack, 56K modem, ethernet, USB 2.0 x2 (1 with support for External MultiBay)
  • Software: Microsoft Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005 and Windows XP Service Pack 2
  • Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.8 in (27.4 x 21.6 x 2.0 cm), 3.1 lb (1.4 kg) Tablet PC only
  • Battery: 6-cell Lithium-Ion, 40 Whr, up to 4.5 hours battery life, warm-swappable
  • Camera: None

With some exceptions (like the warm-swap battery), the new slate beats the old one across the board. Still, for the product of a five year plan, it’s not packing much more than the incremental tech increases that have arisen in the five years since the TC1100 was discontinued. Windows 7 instead of XP, pen+touch instead of pen-only, HDMI instead of VGA for video output, etc., etc. I have to wonder if they would have already delivered something comparable or better if they hadn’t stopped working on their old slate.

17 Comments

17 Comments

  1. acerbic

    04/05/2010 at 7:35 pm

    I’d consider the halved weight quite a significant advantage in a portable device.

  2. Brent

    04/05/2010 at 7:45 pm

    Yeah, I have a TC1100 and in spite of the weight, it is a wonderful machine. The current HP slate really discourages me because instead of keeping the 8.5 x 10.5 factor we are now 5.7 x 9.2 and the screen is reduced from 1024×768 to 1024×600. This is not progress! I already have a Lenovo S10-3t convertible with the same screen and that screen size is NOT conducive to much of anything. In my opinion, this is a fail! Its not good as a reader, doesn’t show magazines well. It just doesn’t cut it.

  3. Tony

    04/05/2010 at 7:46 pm

    price also

  4. aboooooooooooooooooooo

    04/05/2010 at 7:51 pm

    i hate it because it has boarders like the ipad and it looks like the ipad, it look cheep and premative like apple icrab
    what is happining!!!!!!! no body can do decent thing these days???

    i hate boarders

  5. acerbic

    04/05/2010 at 8:13 pm

    Whether you hate people living in boarding houses or skate/snow boarders, it’s not very nice either way. When it comes to bezels though, having some in a handheld gadget like this can be good so that you can grip it without covering the screen with your fingers.

    • GoodThings2Life

      04/05/2010 at 8:25 pm

      Indeed… and at least the HP bezel is a lot more narrow than the iPad.

      • Sumocat

        04/06/2010 at 7:01 am

        Our definitions of “a lot” seem quite different. Side-by-side, using the lengths as a guide, the bezel on the long edges are almost the same and there’s maybe an eighth of an inch difference on the short edges. I wouldn’t call that a lot.

  6. Jan

    04/06/2010 at 4:46 am

    Truly new slate is just more streamlined reincarnation of old TC 1100. Hopefully they won’t break something what they had done so well in past. It’s shame though it took them about 5 years to do it.

  7. Ben

    04/06/2010 at 6:45 am

    I think we should keep in mind that the price has come way down and the battery life has been extended – two things that preclude a huge jump in specs. Also, getting a touch+ink capacitive digitizer (on a Windows device) for this price is kind of crazy. But most unique is the HDMI port – I haven’t been able to find another Windows tablet anywhere that has one… even after HDMI-only digital television screens have been showing up in living rooms for a few years.

    The newest editions of convertible tablets that have been continually updated over the past few years – the ThinkPads, the Fujitsus, the Toshibas and the HPs – are still at least $1000, bulky, disappointing battery capacity, and have VGA ports.

    • Sumocat

      04/06/2010 at 7:10 am

      That’s really not true. The HP TM2 starts at $900, includes pen+multitouch and built-in HDMI (the Slate goes through the dock), and is advertised as getting 9.75 hours of battery life.

    • BurningOrange

      04/06/2010 at 1:42 pm

      the oqo model 2 had hdmi and an active digitizer.

  8. Jeff Jackson

    04/06/2010 at 7:53 am

    I think the “Pen+Touch” capability is not what you’re hoping it to be. It probably just means Windows 7 has ink support in it that’ll “work” with something like the Pogo stylus. Don’t get you’re hopes up too high.

    • acerbic

      04/06/2010 at 1:44 pm

      The leaked(?) specs say “pen/digitizer support” which very much implies something better than using a pogo type stylus.

  9. SAM

    04/06/2010 at 11:20 am

    I wish they would do away with the wide screen aspect,
    or at least have an option.

    Cutting the resolution off at 600 pixels cuts off
    alot of dialogue boxes in many Windows programs

  10. turn.self.off

    04/06/2010 at 1:10 pm

    hot-swap batteries, why are we not seeing that more in mobile devices?

  11. Regular Reader

    04/06/2010 at 6:51 pm

    I still use a TC1100 and remain unconvinced that what the media is proposing as an HP slate will outperform the TC1100.
    What I would buy in a heartbeat for myself and a bunch of my employees is a Win7 machine with the electronics and fast boot of the Asus ULVT machines with an active digitizer. That would be an all day machine for taking notes with OneNote. Or if not an all day machine, close enough to an all day machine to meet the needs of people who have many meetings a day but less than 10 hours a day of meetings non-stop.

  12. charles

    04/14/2010 at 9:41 am

    This is a late hit, I know, but this is the result of some fridge logic.

    When I look up the performance benchmarks for the Atom Z530, I see they fall between the 713 1.1GHz Pentium M and th 733 1.2GHz Pentium M.

    This seems to suggest that all we’re getting with the new slate is a lighter device with modern drivers for all it’s accessories.

    To further complicate things, we have to deal with half the RAM and a narrower screen.

    I really want to encourage HP to keep developing slates, especially after my underwhelming experience with Motion, but given how well Windows 7 works on a TC1100, it’s getting harder and harder to justify getting one of these new slates.

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