MWC: Slate 7 Is HP’s Reentry Into Tablet Market

The Mobile World Conference (MWC) is getting a ton of attention thanks to the number of new tablets that are being unveiled during the conference. Samsung’s headliner, the Galaxy Note 8.0 was introduced along with other Samsung products such as the Galaxy S4 smartphone.

Today was Hewlett Packard’s turn to try and make some noise and they jumped back into the tablet market with the unveiling of the Slate 7. Engadget reports that this particular entry into the huge stable of Android tablets will have a 7-inch screen and will carry a pretty affordable price-tag of $169 per unit.

The Verge points out that this particular device isn’t going to impress with a ton of bells and whistles. The Slate 7 may not need to be all that impressive with the lower price point.

The tablet comes equipped with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and a 1.6GHz Arm Coretex A9 processor. One of the oddities of this particular unveiling is that HP isn’t saying who made the processor.

The HP Slate 7 comes with the usual specs for memory, such as 1GB of RAM and 8GB of memory. That memory can be expanded using a microSD card. Where the Slate 7 really stands out among other baseline Android tablets is that HP has teamed up with Beats Audio.

Those Beats Audio speakers are positioned on the bottom of the tablet and will give users better sound quality than they are used to from Android tablets. The only other real divergence from other stock Android tablets is the use of ePrint.

The HP Slate 7 seems to be directly taking on the Nexus 7 not by offering a ton of new features but simply looking to beat it on price. That could be enough for Android tablet users who are looking to save money.

Some of these stock Android tablets sell better because people know what they are going to get. The Slate 7’s low MSRP means it has a leg up.