Specifications:
Slate tablet design starting at 1.50 lb/0.68 kg
8.9-inch diagonal LED-backlit WSVGA wide-viewing angle display (1024 x 600 or 1024 x 768 for some applications)
Capacitive multi-touch screen with pen digitizer
Integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN
Bluetooth 3.0 + HS
Intel System Controller Hub (SCH) US15W chipset and Intel Atom™ processor
64 GB SSD
Secure Digital (SD) slot
Two integrated webcams (VGA inward facing; 3 MP outward facing)
HP Slate Dock, HP Slate Digital Pen, and HP Slate Folio are optional accessories that may be included on select configurations
As a tablet PC user since the launch of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition in November 2002, I've longed for a lightweight, portable and thin slate device that essentially functions as a digital notepad computer, and this is what I believe HP has delivered in the 500. There's nothing new here, the Slate is just a vanilla Windows 7 Professional device with practically no 3rd party applications installed except Evernote and the camera software, but I think that's actually a good thing as it keeps the unit from being bogged down given its adequate but less-than-powerful Atom platform.
Build & Design
The HP Slate 500 packs a lot of hardware into its svelte 5.91 x 9.21 x 0.58 inch body, and it only weighs 1.5 pounds to boot. The unit is impressive with an Atom Z540 1.86 GHz CPU, 64 GB SSD, 2 GB of DDR2 RAM, front-facing VGA camera, rear-facing 3 megapixel camera and an 8.9-inch 1024 × 600 screen with an N-trig Duo Sense capacitive touch and digital pen digitizer. This combines to give the HP Slate 500 topline specs at a topline price compared to most consumer slates. The 500 is sealed with no user replaceable battery or other parts.
The device is physically attractive and the rubberized back with a distinctive textured repeated pyramidal design with the HP logo in the center allows for good gripping either lying on a surface or in one's hand, and the flat back allows the Slate to function well for inking on a desk.
The device is fanless and completely silent but still manages to keep cool most of the time. The back does get quite warm when the device is charging or being taxed, such as when playing HD video. It's not scalding, but it might make your hands sweat.
Ports, connections, buttons & accessories
The Slate has one USB port, a full SD slot, a combination headphone/microphone jack and a combined power/dock connector. There are five hardware buttons along three sides of the machine. On the right in the primary landscape orientation is the combination power and screen rotation lock switch that disables the accelerometer. At the top right is the home button that minimizes all open windows and when held down for several seconds turns off the display backlight. To the left is the Control-Alt-Delete button for domain security purposes. On the top left is a volume rocker and finally on the left side is a toggle button for the Windows Tablet Input Panel.
The dock is lightweight with a folding leg and provides two additional USB ports, a headphone/microphone jack, a power connector that's identical to the one on the HP Slate 500, and finally an HDMI output. The Slate pops in and out of the dock nicely.
The metal digital pen uses an AAAA battery and is very comfortable to hold but the battery cap at the top is a bit flimsy, I've already broken the plastic ring around the top but fortunately it hasn't interfered with the pen's function as far as I've noticed. As with most digital pens on tablet PCs, it has a right click button.
The leather portfolio is form fitted for the Slate and has cutouts for the cameras and a strap holder for the pen. It reeks of professionalism and is a wonderful touch to the package as the Slate 500 is a device many will want to take to professional settings such as meetings.
The total weight of the Slate, dock, AC adapter, portfolio and pen is 3 lbs. according to my postage scale, which is accurate to within two ounces.
Screen
The 8.9-inch screen is bright however, viewing angles are not very good in primary landscape mode. I've found that rotating the screen 180 degrees so that the HP logo is at the top provides better image quality especially for video when viewing the screen outside of 45 degrees. As is common with slates, the screen is smooth and glossy and does produce glare, but I've not found it distracting in normal indoor lighting conditions though bright and direct sunlight will washout the screen. There is a good amount of backlight bleed around the edges of the screen. It's not typically a problem but it is noticeable with darker colors and blacks, especially during video playback in darker lighting conditions.
Performance
As the HP Slate 500 is essentially an Atom based netbook running Windows 7; it's simply not a speed demon. It has a Windows Experience Index of 2.7, with the 2.7 being the CPU rating, which is a bit higher than first-generation netbooks, and the 64 GB SSD does help to keep things humming along nicely for a netbook.
You'll find that common desktop applications like Office 2010 run wonderfully. Web browsing in IE 9 Beta overall is a solid experience with all of the Flash and other browser plug-ins you've become accustomed to in Windows.
That's not to say that web browsing on the Slate 500 is a super smooth experience in all cases. While most web sites run well, there are some that just don't. Some vertically-oriented sites will often stutter when scrolling, which can be frustrating particularly while using the touchscreen. On the flipside, pure Flash sites like Geforce.com run very well. Major sites like YouTube, Facebook, etc. all run fine. You'll have a blast updating your Facebook page with a pen!
Touch Interface
The N-trig Duo Sense digitizer also has a capacitive multi-touch part that supports four touch points. Touch is responsive and works well in most applications, but since Windows is a desktop OS, most of those applications will not have the beautiful and fluid visuals of the iPad. The tradeoff is that one will usually have more functionality with those programs.
The Office 2010 suite of applications are examples that do provide enough touch awareness to be completely functional via only touch, and Office will generally outpace mobile OS equivalents in features. But even in Office, there are still buttons and menus that were obviously not updated or designed with fingers in mind, and not all of the applications work equally well with touch, including PowerPoint and Publisher. You might have to use a little more care to do certain things but there is rarely something that can't be done via touch in most applications, even if it is not as fluid as it should be.
Video Performance
The Slate 500's video playback abilities are strong gratis Windows. I've used a variety of applications: Windows Media Player & Center, VLC and KMPlayer, and they all perform well, though VLC seemed to provide the smoothest 720p playback. 720p and even 1080p playback over 802.11n Wi-Fi is possible, though 1080p only worked in WMP and WMC as those applications use the Broadcom Crystal HD video decoder out of the box, though it is possible to get KM Player to as well.
modified from tabletpcreview.com
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