HP’s ENORMO-SLAB: The Slate 21 MONSTER tablet Hewlett-Packard’s first attempt at an Android tablet, the Slate 7, was a cheap, wretched and irredeemably awful device. So when I heard that the Palm killer’s follow-up fondleslab was to be a 21-inch affair, my reaction was one of incredulity mixed with foreboding. HP Slate 21 Your new desktop? HP’s Android-based Slate 21 …
Saw one of the Viewsonics in a museum in the summer, not as an exhibit, but, as a video player. It was mounted next to a display and had a host of videos loaded, explaining different things about what was on display. Worked very well. No instructions needed, just a screen full of thumbnail videos, so you easily see what it was about and a prod with a finger was all that was needed to get them playing.
I think the author pretty much answers your question in the article, if you read the following paragraph:
"I’ve read some criticism in the US press - hacks across the pond got their grubby mitts on the Slate 21 well ahead of us scribblers in Blighty - of the Slate 21 for lacking an accelerometer or a GPS chip but frankly that’s daft. The 21 is so clearly not intended to be portable or held in your hands that stripping it of two bits of functionality that are wholly aimed at handheld devices seems a reasonable course for HP to have taken to keep the price down."
It's a touchscreen and as far as I can see, out of the box it's just a touchscreen - and Google speech recognition, probably. You can put on a keyboard and mouse but they aren't included. Hence, apparently, it's an "Enormo-Slab". Or, if you use it for telephony, a "Phlablet".
Can you put GPS on it with a USB GPS accessory? Just speculating. Probably not.
criticism in the US press... of the Slate 21 for lacking an accelerometer or a GPS chip but frankly that’s daft
Not at all, old lad.
Fit an accelerometer to it, and if it's sensitive enough, the Slate 21 will give you advance warning when you and your house are about to slide into the Pacific or the abyss.
They could even charge a premium for the "Slate 21 - San Andreas model"
Good point; can only be better than a smart TV "send all your data for adverts", and with a roku box at 99 pounds, a 21' tablet isn't too bad. iplayer, youtube, netflix, google hangouts,
In fact, a 37" version could be really impressive. While HP's record in hardware is a bit patchy at times, at least they are more experienced than TV vendors at building things with ethernet ports
I was thinking about a device like this the other day and was pondering just how functional Android would be as a desktop OS. From a quick perusal of the app store, yes, you can get pretty much every generic home/small office requirement covered. Obviously hardcore CAD/Video Editors would require something a lot more powerful with more storage, but the idea still holds true, as hammarbtyp said above, could we eventually see the end of Windows on the desktop?
I think Google are missing a trick not releasing a £200 device like the Chromebook but running Android with a 500GB hard drive. I know of the transformer tablets and bluetooth keyboard/case options for regular tablets, but Google could easily release the Chromebook chassis with Android for less than Acer & Co equivalent tablets with optional keyboards and dominate the cheap laptop market.
Google won't release a Chromebook with a 500GB drive - the Google business model is built on targeting advertising at you by mining your data, so it ensures it gets its grubby mitts on it by preventing you storing it locally. Proprietary OSs don't come cheap you know.
Chrome is basically linux so it does come cheap. That is in effect Microsoft's problem: the OS has become commoditised, there is no added value. Windows desktop lives on because it is the gateway to the best applications ecosystem, but when that doesn't apply, there's no point in paying for it. Of course, there is highly valuable IP in all the years of Microsoft OS R&D: that's why it gets about $5 per Android device in licence fees for a few years until those patents expire.
As for rotating disks: There are chromebooks with disks, but SSD performance is vastly superior. I think that's the main reason SSD chromebooks have taken over. Low-end Windows laptops avoid SSD for price reasons, not because magnetic disks are better. Chromebooks basically put the savings from avoiding a Windows licence into better hardware, assuming you regard a small SSD as better than a 300GB magnetic disk.
No, Chrome is not "basically Linux" - there's an awful lot more to an operating system than a kernel. But even if you want to dismiss the rest of the OS, the kernel itself is not free to Google because it has spent money contributing to it - akin to the Microsoft R&D of which you speak. It's not a charity, so how do you think it recoups its investment? Either by advertising or by selling cloud services.
The company I work for do a lot of energy management systems for various organisations, some of whom decide they want a screen in their foyer to show off how green they are.
We've got a demo of such a unit running at our office, it's basically a standard monitor with a Zotac PC bolted to the back of it on a VESA mount, running Ubuntu 12.04 and a front-end using the Unity3D games engine and MVX talking to a MacroView SCADA server back-end.
For one of the clients, we did similar, but the display system instead ran Windows 7 and the PecStar client.
Both the PecStar Client and Unity3D are available on Android.
Not sure it would be that easy. From what I've heard of this screen you'd need to spend 150 to equal it, and 20 to get reasonable speakers. That leaves you 159 for your (presumably linux) PC.
Even if you could beat it, you'd end up with the standard ugly box, kb, mouse and screen. I think HP have hit a real sweet spot with this price.
quote: "Uhm... for this money I guess I can get a bigger screen, better computer AND I don't have to move my ass at all :)"
Good luck with that, the last mini-PC I bought was £190 without a harddisk or operating system, if you also add a monitor and wireless peripherals in (the not-moving-your-ass part I assume) I struggle to see how you can have change from tree fiddy while keeping a 21"+ sized display. If you have a specific product in mind I am genuinely interested in hearing about it, because I'm considering getting a second as another HTPC :)
"The touchscreen is an optical affair. Three cameras keep track of where and how you tap, stroke or fondle it. "
I take it the 5mm clearance mentioned in the article means that the glass front protects the rim of the display from dust?
There is a make of interactive whiteboard that uses optical sensing (not actual cameras, sort of a pattern of reflections) so that you can operate it with your fingers while still using basically a bit of chipboard as the back. We had to dust the rim regularly to keep it working.
As others have said: information kiosks and information display. VESA mount and all.
I read this review with interest! Every other review I have read just didn't get the device at all... which is a shame.
I bought one of these when they were first released, I have wanted a tablet for my kitchen for a long time.
I use this system in my kitchen and the only limitations I have found are with the software in the play store, for example, some do not pick up the Ethernet connection as a network connection. I hope HP release Kitkat to this device as I feel it will really help the 1Gb of RAM they chose to put in it! I would love to see a "hacker" community built round this device. I use an elgato EyeTv with my slate 21 and this makes it an excellent digital TV, with the recipes and web browsing and a few quality games this is the tablet to own!
Worms the 1990s hit is amazing on this device and thoroughly good family fun.
I am toying with getting a "controller" for this device, any recommendations?
True, 1080 is not that much, but:
(A) This is a £340-ish thing, not a near £1k ultrabook with piss-poor 900 lines.
(B) There is very little above 1080, some monitors have 1200/1440/1600 but cost £300/500/1000 sort of price for the monitor alone.
Overall I am impressed by this and can see it suiting a range of folk for basic computing needs, particularly for the likes of my elderly parents for whom even a 15" wide screen laptop display is simply too small, and for whom paying >£1k for a 17" laptop is just not on.
No battery
I was about to go buy one. It seemed just the device I needed. I'm about to move all the main computers out to a garden office which leaves me needing something I can use in the house and I'd rather have a larger screen. Sometimes the 10" of a regular tablet just isn't enough.
But Android is as aweful as iOS to use.
Walled Garden or Spied on? The choice is yours.
I'll stick with a windows all in one thanks! At least it's business ready and does everything my home PC needs to do, and it looks good. Of course the obvious benefit is that I don't have the "what a p*ick" tag that macs have or the "you're a total mug" tag of android.
HP might be onto something with this, as many comments above have speculated on it replacing a kitchen or bedroom TV. It's not a TV, but if HP decide to add a DVB-T2 tuner I'll be first in line.
For me, the 'Smart' TV revolution has been distinctly underwhelming - taking a TV and augmenting it with some crude and laggy walled garden functionality. This is better, build a large touchscreen tablet first, then add the TV functionality on top
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