The HP Slate 500 is a multi-touch capable Windows 7 slate PC that was announced at CES 2010 and launched on 22 October 2010. The HP Slate 500 is the ideal PC for professionals who don’t usually work at a traditional desk, yet need to stay productive in a secure, familiar Windows® environment. The HP Slate 500 is also intended for those who use custom applications built for Windows®.
HP announced that the device was available for purchase on 22 October 2010, initially with a cost of US$799.It is intended to be used in business applications, with a tablet computer using the WebOS operating system to be launched for consumer consumption sometime in march 2011. A month after launch, HP announced that the device was back ordered for six weeks due to “extraordinary demand,” though Engadget claimed that a source said that HP had planned to build only 5,000 Slates, but received orders for 9,000, forcing the delay.
I’d argue the biggest problem is the user interface for the Tablet PC, which just wasn’t designed for touch. The retrofitting hasn’t worked well; and the UI still feels clunky — both in the OS, and in the applications. I can switch among open tabs in Firefox by just pressing on the tabs, but they seem a bit small for the purpose. And hitting a menu command? No problem with the pen, but hard to do it accurately with my thumb. You have to be much more careful exactly where you are touching than you do on an iPad or similar tablet. To fix this, applications would need to be written with larger buttons and just a different look, and no one has really pushed enough to make this happen.
HP Palm are expected to reveal 3 new webOS 2.0 powered tablets (PalmPads) at CES 2011 on January 6th 2011, with a fourth tablet coming at a later date that is more geared towards being an e-reader like the Amazon Kindle.
