HP Reenters Tablet Market With $169 Android-Based 'Slate 7' as LG Acquires WebOS for TVs

[MacRumors]

Two years ago, HP was viewed as potential major tablet competitor for Apple and the iPad, with the company's 2010 acquisition of Palm allowing it to debut its webOS-based TouchPad in early 2011. The TouchPad turned out to be a flop, however, until the company lowered pricing to $99 in order to clear out stock, and HP quickly decided to exit the smartphone and tablet markets and turn webOS into an open source project.

HP is now jumping back into the tablet game, announcing yesterday an April U.S. launch for the HP Slate 7, an Android-based tablet carrying a $169 price tag.

With a 7-inch diagonal screen and weighing 13 ounces, the HP Slate 7 is an ideal trusted personal companion, featuring a stainless-steel frame and soft black paint in gray or red on the back. It also is the industry's first tablet to offer embedded Beats Audio, for the best-sounding, richest audio experience available on a tablet. [...]

Powered by an ARM Dual Core Cortex-A9 1.6 GHz processor, the HP Slate 7 is fast and responsive. Integrated wireless allows customers to access email, the internet and key applications, while the High-aperture-ratio Field Fringe Switching (HFFS) panel offers wide viewing angles that provide easy viewing of documents, games, photos and videos--even in outdoor lighting conditions.

The HP Slate 7 includes a 3-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front for chatting, videos and photos.

As noted by The Verge, HP's new Slate 7 is just the first of many tablet models set to launch this year, with HP recognizing that it needs to be in the rapidly growing tablet market if it wants to retake the lead from Apple in the increasingly combined PC/tablet market.

"HP is the number one PC manufacturer in the world, and we want to be the number one computer vendor in the world. That means we need to be in the tablet space."

That's Alberto Torres, the man tasked with making it happen. [...]

"On the tablet side, it's entirely our intent to have a broad set of products on the market... to cover more segments of the market we'll need more products, and you'll see us aggressively pursue that over the year."

HP's return to the tablet market with Android comes just as the company has agreed to sell webOS to LG, which plans to use the operating system for its smart televisions, as reported by CNET.

With the deal, LG obtains the source code for WebOS, related documentation, engineering talent, and related WebOS Web sites. LG also gets HP licenses for use with its WebOS products, and patents HP obtained from Palm. The financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

LG remains focused on Android for its smartphones, but views webOS as a promising platform for television. According to an October report from webOS Nation, LG and Gram, HP's subsidiary set up to oversee webOS, had already been working together on the webOS television project, and it now appears solid enough that LG has decided to acquire webOS entirely.

Article Link: HP Reenters Tablet Market With $169 Android-Based 'Slate 7' as LG Acquires WebOS for TVs

[gotluck]

Better deal than the firesale touchpad?

Probably not

Sd card slot? Internal memory amount?

[Carlanga]

Not bad! This means next year we could start seeing good quality 7" tablets for $99

[TheHateMachine]

WRU detailed info... Res? Skin? Version?

Stainless Steel?!?

[ArtOfWarfare]

It took a lot of digging but I found these two stats of interest:

1024 x 600 is the resolution
8 GB is how much memory is built in for $169.

It's running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) so it's at least one version old already (4.2 - Key Lime Pie has already been released.)

[caligomez]

Looks like the race to the bottom is on..

THey should've never left the tablet market in the first place (even if they would've substituted Android for Web OS).. They were early in the game, and now they are forced to buy market share with deep discounts.

I think it's too little, too late.. but we'll see.

[nepalisherpa]

At least enter the market with a competitive hardware. 1024x600 resolution, 8GB, and a dual-core processor with a $169 price tag? Come on, I would spend $30 more and get a Nexus 7.

[blackhand1001]

The most interesting thing about this tablet is the fact that it runs stock android with no skinning what so ever.

[AngelOfSoul]

The tablet is lame, but for the current price tag will definitely be a deal of the year.

[garybUK]

What is with HP and HTC's obsession with Beats Audio... you've just turned off any potential buyers who want a half decent sounding tablet....

[shartypants]

Looks like too little too late. Why bother? It should be called S-Late.

[blackhand1001]

Originally Posted by ArtOfWarfare

It took a lot of digging but I found these two stats of interest:

1024 x 600 is the resolution
8 GB is how much memory is built in for $169.

It's running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) so it's at least one version old already (4.2 - Key Lime Pie has already been released.)

4.2 is also jellybean and i can see their point in using 4.1. Its a much more stable base at this point.

[extricated]

"mac" rumors?

[AFPoster]

fail...

[Fresh Pie]

Amaze your friends during visiting hours at their jail!

[ArtOfWarfare]

Originally Posted by blackhand1001

4.2 is also jellybean and i can see their point in using 4.1. Its a much more stable base at this point.

Did Google change their naming plans? I thought 0.1 updates came with name changes and only 0.0.1 updates kept the same name...

[Tankmaze]

HP recognizing that it needs to be in the rapidly growing tablet market if it wants to retake the lead from Apple in the increasingly combined PC/tablet market.

Why not stay with Web OS hp!! they could compete with apple by offering vertical solution with software + hardware.
lots of promising stuff when palm introduce the Web OS...

[bearda]

Originally Posted by ArtOfWarfare

Did Google change their naming plans? I thought 0.1 updates came with name changes and only 0.0.1 updates kept the same name...

4.2 was deemed not a significant enough update to justify a name change. 4.1 and 4.2 are both Jelly Bean.

[Semester]

I've seen a lot of complaining about the resolution. But be aware. At 170 the PPI is better than on the iPad mini.

[merkinmuffley]

My crystal ball is predicting these things will get inexpensive in the coming months. I'd like to see the tear down report on this one and see what the components cost, my bet is there is not a lot of profit at the $169 price point.

[applesith]

Besides the low price, what does this offer? Sounds like HP just wants to have a tablet out there for the sake of it.

[thleeal]

.......................I like the price point.

ya listenin apple?

[Hungry&Foolish]

Total lemon, soon on sale for 99.

[r4man]

"On the tablet side, it's entirely our intent to have a broad set of products on the market... to cover more segments of the market we'll need more products, and you'll see us aggressively pursue that over the year."

Translation: "We have utterly nothing new to offer so we are going to throw a bunch of stuff out there with hopes of creating some market share."

[bearda]

Originally Posted by Tankmaze

Why not stay with Web OS hp!! they could compete with apple by offering vertical solution with software + hardware.
lots of promising stuff when palm introduce the Web OS...

They tried that before, and realized they sucked at it. They figured they would go the route of software vendor and license webOS out to other outfits that could develop hardware that didn't suck, and that went exactly nowhere. Then they tried giving the software away (openWebOS), and they still didn't have any takers. So now they're trying to developing their own hardware that runs someone else's software, and the result is exactly what everyone expected. Lackluster me-too products.

HP is continuing to do what they do best. Burn through capital.

----------

Originally Posted by Semester

I've seen a lot of complaining about the resolution. But be aware. At 170 the PPI is better than on the iPad mini.

PPI isn't everything. In terms of screen real estate it's pretty poor. The iPad mini has a physically larger display and can fit more stuff onscreen.