[Merged] HP Slate - Upcoming Tablet, Possibly Running WebOS

[Bodhi395]

I can see an Android-based tablet being a viable alternative to the iPad, but a Win7-based tablet? nope.

I agree!

I think its been said before and some of the comments here are reiterating it, a tablet will only succeed if its designed from the ground up to work as a mobile, touch interface device from the get go. You can't simply take an full on computing OS like Windows 7 and stick it into a mobile touch device, it just won't work very well.

This is why I think Apple has not worries about windows based tablets.

Yet, the android tablet is something that will be based on a mobile OS that uses touch. Given that, it will run far more smoothly and have a much better user experience. If Android OS continues to grow and get more and more apps, I see an well made, sleek android tablet being a real competitor to the iPad in a few years.

 

[etmister]

Echoing what others have said about the use of an OS that is specific to a touch device. I did not think that the iPhone OS was the right choice until I fired up the LogMeIn Ignition and try to navigate Snow Leopard with my finger. It is made for the fine control of a mouse, not the finger. I can't imagine that Windows will be any better. I could be wrong if it is stylus based. I need to actually use the HP and other tablets before I can have true opinion. I do think the iPad is a much easier to use device with the iPhone OS and version 4.0 will improve it further.

 

[spinedoc77]

I think the HP slate could have worked, but not in its current iteration. I was one of the few who said no to the ipad and was holding out for the slate initially. The 2 things that finally swayed me were 1) instant on and 2) battery life.

In the end I bought the ipad, and will look fondly at the slate as something I almost purchased. But the bottom line is I already have a Windows 7 laptop (my macbook air no less) and for me to ditch my Win7 laptop for a Win7 tablet they better make it an instant on, on all day, easily used with one finger machine. Trust me, I ran a Fujitsu P810 for years (looking at it right now on my desk collecting dust) and it's got Win7 on it and it's a major PITA to use.

What apple NEEDS to do is shorten up the functional gap a bit between Win7 and the ipad OS, and this could be done very simply IMO. Input is easy, every time I open my Apple ipad case I wonder why Apple couldn't put a slim keyboard in the case itself so when I pop it open I've got essentially a laptop. I've even considered sewing in one of those cloth bluetooth keyboards. The input of the ipad is a serious detriment, and when you get to carrying a bluetooth keyboard it's portability is diminished.

The other area Apple needs to be a master of is web browsing. Lets face it, Safari on the ipad is pretty sucky compared to full Safari, firefox, IE8, etc. They really need to beef up ipad safari.

With that said, and me admitting unabashedly I'm a Windows fanboi, I still pick up my ipad 99% of the time when hitting the road. My laptop only goes if I have heavy intensive typing to do, and even that I would forego if Apple invented some kind of flip case with a keyboard. Plus the hardware is just so well made, the glass screen is just so insanely nice to do things on and I don't think I could ever go back to plastic screens.

Yeah the slate will be kind of cool, but not differentiating enough from my laptop to make me get one, and not svelte enough in functionality to use over the ipad.

 

[ctt1wbw]

What really makes me laugh about rech reporting these days is that everything is an iPhone killer, an iPod killer, an iPad killer... They're saying the Slate is going to be an iPad killer because it runs Flash? Who gives a **** about Flash? Is the HP Slate out yet to purchase? When is it going to come out, which half of the year? This half or the second half? Why are tech reporters constantly saying some mythical vapor-hardware is going to be a present day hardware killer, when the present day hardware killer has already sold over one million units in just less than a month?

 

[darngooddesign]

Fail at what?

They'll make it, people will buy it. Will it be tremendously successful, who knows but I doubt it will fail.

 

[wombat888]

They're saying the Slate is going to be an iPad killer because it runs Flash? Who gives a **** about Flash?

I agree with most of your post, but to answer this specific question ... a LOT of people care about Flash. This is a significant thorn in the side. I'll buy an iPad anyway, but this is #1 on the list of things that made me think twice before deciding to buy one for certain.

 

[r0k]

I have mixed feelings about flash. I miss it when i can't see something on my iPad. But more often than not, flash is misused. For instance, go to adobe.com and try to buy something. All the forms are flash objects. Now wait a minute here. Doesn't HTML do a good enough job of pulldowns and fill in the blanks all by itself? I mean there no graphics, no animation, they are simply misusing flash on their site. A few years back, I went to a flash developer's conference and they showed examples of using flash for an entire web site. I believe the example they used was a hotel reservation system. I mean it is cool to be able to get 3d previews of prospective rooms but why did the entire site have to be flash?

Bottom line, flash is not part of the equation when it comes to the success or failure of either the iPad or the HP Slate.

 

[wombat888]

Oh, I agree - in general, I wish sites used HTML instead of Flash, where possible. I just advised a friend the other day to try to get her new company's site reconceptualized as an HTML experience rather than their current plan, which is primarily a Flash experience. It's bad for search engine optimization, among other issues.

But in the world that we live in, rather than the world we might prefer to live in, Flash is a significant element, and not having access to it is a significant drawback.

 

[Davidkoh]

Define fail please? Is that defined as "not many people purchase it" ? I have my hopes for it being better then the iPad for me, why would I care how many they sell?

As long as the UI they added on for the touch makes surfing work it will be on the same level as the iPad, because mail and surfing is about the only thing I can do decently on it. Well, I could watch a movie, but I do 99% of my movie watching at home on my projector, and well, I can plug the iPad into that one.

I am waiting for the slate to come out before judging, if they just made touch work for mailing and surfing and such I might get it .

 

[illutionz]

Tablet needs to be designed for mobility from the get go, hence iPad and Android slate device will fare much... much... better than their "shrunken <insert any desktop OS>" counterpart.

Sticking full blown desktop OS into a tablet will create a suboptimal experience (eg: slow performance and unintuitive UI) and I applaud Apple for not sticking their Snow Leopard to iPad.... I hope these 3rd party manufacturers would realize this and tilt towards Android slate development to compete with iPad instead of putting a under-performed desktop OS into their tablets.

Just my 2 cents

 

[ippikiokami]

I have mixed feelings about flash. I miss it when i can't see something on my iPad. But more often than not, flash is misused. For instance, go to adobe.com and try to buy something. All the forms are flash objects. Now wait a minute here. Doesn't HTML do a good enough job of pulldowns and fill in the blanks all by itself? I mean there no graphics, no animation, they are simply misusing flash on their site. A few years back, I went to a flash developer's conference and they showed examples of using flash for an entire web site. I believe the example they used was a hotel reservation system. I mean it is cool to be able to get 3d previews of prospective rooms but why did the entire site have to be flash?

Bottom line, flash is not part of the equation when it comes to the success or failure of either the iPad or the HP Slate.

But there are a lot of sites that look good in flash too. If flash does solve it's heaver cpu uses in half a year or so before a lot of websites jump ship what would your or any other flash detractors be then?

I mean as you said it's not necessarily all flash is bad it's the misuse of flash. But once people find ways to flash stuff in HTML 5 it could be just as bad. I mean heck even the video streaming in HTML5 currently has it's problems.

First off to clear this up with people. Streaming in HTML5 does not mean it's encoded in any way shape or form in html 5. It's h.264 (in youtubes world) so your computer needs to be fast enough to decode that. Secondly that format isn't even a standard yet.. And as far as I know there isn't any way to run secure streams through html5 yet either.

There are still a ton of holes in html5. Don't think it can totally replace flash yet just because apple told you so. This immense hatred torward flash I find silly. Adobe didn't force anyone to use it and they aren't there to hold everyone's hand to code for it correctly. That's up to the developers themselves.

 

[flyguy206]

lol. Fail? Are you Serious?

hahahahaha

A mobile device that can run Protools, Reason, Soundforge, VST's, Edit Audio/Video, Play any Aud/Vid format will never fail.

Nobody uses windows for music production. What makes think anyone would want to run those program on a hp slate

 

[wombat888]

Some people do edit audio and video on Windows, of course. But more to the point ... who is going to use a tablet to edit audio and video to any significant degree? That's laptop territory, if not desktop.

To get a CPU and other hardware in a tablet that would perform acceptably for those uses, you're talking about a much higher price, probably a thicker case, fans, heat issues. Battery life would also be drastically reduced (like 2 hours), unless it had a truly gigantic battery.

It totally changes the concept of the device, and takes you to a point where you're better off just buying a laptop.

Laws of physics dictate that you cannot make a smaller, lighter device with a touchscreen UI that has as much raw power as a laptop at a lower price than a laptop.

Obviously, I could be wrong, and companies are welcome to try ... but I think that's what the market response would be.

By the way, I'm not saying the devices CANNOT edit audio or video. I'm saying they can't do it with acceptable performance beyond the most basic applications.

 

[ippikiokami]

Nobody uses windows for music production. What makes think anyone would want to run those program on a hp slate

This is completely wrong btw. Tons of people use windows for music production.

And Wombat I think the challange right now is how can we adapt things like ipads to also be useful in audio / video production. As controllers or small interfaces, individual instruments etc.

Unfortunately some of the ways I think could benefit videographers are held back by more by the closed nature of the ipad than the processing power. Though i hope some of those doors will open up in the future.

 

[Bytor65]

lol. Fail? Are you Serious?
A mobile device that can run Protools, Reason, Soundforge, VST's, Edit Audio/Video, Play any Aud/Vid format will never fail.

It would be a faulty reasoning to assume that iPad alone that will kill the HP slate(or that others are making that assumption).

The HP slate will fail because it is nearly the worse way to experience Windows 7. If you want a portable to run all those windows applications, 99.999% of people will be better served by a laptop with a better screen, more ram, keyboard/mouse(as the OS/applications intend). It will fail because it is directly competing against every other windows laptop on the market and they do it better.

The iPad directly competes with nothing and is the best way run Apples Touch OS.

 

[r0k]

There are a lot of "path of least resistance users" out there and they will get a windows slate to to with their windows everything else. People are doing some wishful thinking in this thread but despite the ipad's success, the hp slate will probably do well, too. Thinking back a few posts where I agreed it would fail, I should clarify to say it will fail to kill iPad.

 

[stevensr123]

I think I'm going to do the smart thing an wait until it is out before I claim it is pure fail or the best thing since sliced bread.....

 

[pooryou]

I can see an Android-based tablet being a viable alternative to the iPad, but a Win7-based tablet? nope.

Even though they are far behind Apple in many ways, Microsoft still know a ridiculous amount more about building operating systems than Google, who have no expertise in this area at all. I agree about Win7, but I don't see any Google offering being better.

 

[HiRez]

There are a lot of "path of least resistance users" out there and they will get a windows slate to to with their windows everything else. People are doing some wishful thinking in this thread but despite the ipad's success, the hp slate will probably do well, too. Thinking back a few posts where I agreed it would fail, I should clarify to say it will fail to kill iPad.

Perhaps, but Windows-based slates have been tried before, what is so new, better, and different about this one that's going to get people on board with it? Windows 7? I doubt that's enough, the OS may be better than Vista or whatever, but fundamentally it's still another Windows desktop OS shoehorned into a mobile device ill-equipped to handle it. There were also cel phones out there before the iPhones that had browsers in them, probably including some Microsoft-based ones, but how many people used them for web browsing?

 

[mbell75]

There are several upcoming Android tablets, none grab my attention though and unless its licensed by Google, it will NOT have access to the Android market. That will make it pretty much useless unless you just want a portable version of Unbuntu. I think the only tablet with a shot of giving the iPad REAL competition would be if Google got HTC to make a tablet with the Sense UI and full access to the market. I would want....

1280x720 LED backlit 9-10 inch display
Android 2.2 OS running on Sprint's 3G/4G network
1.66Ghz (or 2.0Ghz) next gen Snapdragon processor
1GB of RAM
SDHC memory expandable to 64GB
USB port
Flash 10.1

I would buy that in a second...

 

[Lotus Esprit V8]

How can you be so critical of a device that hasn't even been released yet?
Can't you wait for it to come out before you start trashing it?

 

[r0k]

Perhaps, but Windows-based slates have been tried before, what is so new, better, and different about this one that's going to get people on board with it? Windows 7? I doubt that's enough, the OS may be better than Vista or whatever, but fundamentally it's still another Windows desktop OS shoehorned into a mobile device ill-equipped to handle it. There were also cel phones out there before the iPhones that had browsers in them, probably including some Microsoft-based ones, but how many people used them for web browsing?

Yes, I know. My daughter has one. We hate it. It's qn hp convertible tablet PC running xp. It just plain sucks and it is heavy too. Until the hp slate or a similar machine comes out, there is no direct iPad competitor from the ms side of the world. Just a lot of heavy, expensive, jumpy slow-selling mediocre machines. I have used a pocket PC. It is best not to call pocket internet explorer a browser unless you're comparing it to lynx.

So what's new about the hp slate would be the form factor, not the software. But if the os is slow or battery life is poor, then iPad will wipe the floor with the hp.

 

[rasputinj]

I have the HP TouchSmart Tm2t tablet and it plan sucks as a tablet, it has a mind of its own when it comes to rotating the screen, the stylus sucks. I only use it when I have needed a lighter weight Windows system when I travel. My daughter likes to draw on it, but can't wait until the iPad comes in. I believe the slate will be underpowered for Windows 7, it will look good and perform like a netbook slow slow slow.

 

[lilo777]

Tablet needs to be designed for mobility from the get go, hence iPad and Android slate device will fare much... much... better than their "shrunken <insert any desktop OS>" counterpart.

Sticking full blown desktop OS into a tablet will create a suboptimal experience (eg: slow performance and unintuitive UI) and I applaud Apple for not sticking their Snow Leopard to iPad.... I hope these 3rd party manufacturers would realize this and tilt towards Android slate development to compete with iPad instead of putting a under-performed desktop OS into their tablets.

Just my 2 cents

So, you think iPad GUI is very intuitive? Did you try to download something from Internet lately? Send an attachment? Print something? Copy files to iPad? How intuitive is that on iPad? And these are very trivial tasks which people can do easily on all kinds of computers.

 

[HiRez]

So, you think iPad GUI is very intuitive? Did you try to download something from Internet lately? Send an attachment? Print something? Copy files to iPad? How intuitive is that on iPad? And these are very trivial tasks which people can do easily on all kinds of computers.

That's not a lack of intuitiveness, that's a lack of features.