There have been rumors in recent weeks that HP was planning to launch an Android-based tablet and today, the PC maker officially confirmed those reports. HP said it plans to launch the Slate 7 tablet sometime in April in the U.S.
HP"s Next Bench blog has the details on the Slate 7, which indeed has a 7-inch display, as you might have guessed by its brand name, with a resolution of 1024x600. HP claims this display uses Field Fringe Switching, which should allow for solid wide-angle viewing of content, even while the Slate 7 is used outside in high sunlight.
The tablet will run on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1.6 GHz processor. It also has 8 GB of storage and a microSD slot for any extra storage needs. The Slate 7 will have a three megapixel rear camera and a front facing VGA camera, along with Beats audio. The exclusive HP ePrint application should allow the tablet to print from most any application.
Pricing for the tablet will start at $169, placing it in contention with other low-priced tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire or a Google Nexus 7. It should be interesting to see how the HP Slate 7 stand up to an already crowded seven-inch tablet market.
Source: HP | Image via HP