With the hopes of
boosting its market sales for large-screen Android tablets, HP rolled out its
very own Pro Slate 12, which stands out with a rugged 12.3-inch display and its
ability to digitize notes from regular paper. The new HP Pro Slate 12 is
considered to be a standout when set against a backdrop of seven other tablet
announcements. Despite its enormous display, this tablet is surprisingly easy
to handle. And weighing at 850 grams, it's somewhere in between heavy and light
-- in short, it's just perfect to bring along.
Let's take a closer
look at its specs, as well as its features, to give you a better visibility on
the HP Pro Slate 12 tablet.
When it comes to this
tablet's screen, it's 1600 x 1200 display is fairly good. Similar with the
iPad, the company chose to go with a 4:3 layout, since consumers spend most of
the time using tablets in portrait orientation. The tablet is the company's
first with a durable screen based on Corning's Concore Glass technology, which
protects the glass from drops on rough surfaces such as asphalt. Another first
with the Pro Slate 12 is that it comes with a "Duet Pen" stylus that
you can use to take notes on paper and on the tablet. When you're using it, the
pen emits an ultrasonic sound that the tablets can track and triangulate with
internal microphones, which is supposed to increase suspension. You can also
swap the tip out for an actual ink tip, and the tablet will map and store
whatever you're writing on actual paper. Pretty neat, huh.
Under the hood, the
Pro Slate 12 packs a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2 GB of RAM,
and 32 GB of storage, along with an 8-MP rear camera and a 2-MP shooter at the
front. Weighing a little less than two pounds, you can say that it's actually
light for its gigantic size. It also sports a microSD slot and microUSB 2.0
input -- sorry, but it doesn't have any USB 3.0 or HDMI port. Of course, it
also supports the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi networking.
If you want to
experience the Pro Slate 12's feature set and Duet Pen but in a smaller and
sharper display version, you can go with the Pro Slate 8. It utilizes a
7.9-inch, 2048 x 1536 Gorilla Glass 4 screen, starting at $449. As for the Pro
Slate 12, you'll be shelling out around $569.
