Engadget has managed to get hold of a very interesting internal presentation slide from Hewlett-Packard which compares Apple’s iPad to HP’s very own Slate. Since we didn’t yet know anything about the Slate’s specifications, this one is pretty revealing. While that’s interesting in and of itself, the slide is also interesting in that it illustrates so well what sets Apple apart from companies like HP.
Let’s quickly run through the specifications of the HP Slate first. It sports an Intel Atom Z530 processor (1.6Ghz), 1GB of non-upgradable DDR2 RAM, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, 8.9″ WSVGA (1024×600) display, capacitive multitouch with pen/digitiser support, and Intel UMA display chip with HD accelerator (1080p support).
Port-wise, it has a USB 2.0 port, SD card slot, SIM card slot, headphone and microphone jacks, and a dock connector. On the battery life front, HP claims it does “5+ hours”, which is obviously a whole lot less than what the iPad can deliver – more than ten hours.
When it comes to software, the Slate will run Windows 7 with an HP touch-optimised user interface. We know very little about this interface, but this recent YouTube video gives a short sneak peak at what HP is working on. HP wants 549 USD for the 32GB version, and 599 USD for 64GB.
What interests me about this slide is the “HP advantage” and “HP threat” thing. This point-by-point feature and specification comparison is the epitome of the PC world – it’s how companies like Dell and HP market their stuff. More features, faster processors, more RAM, without looking at the product as a whole – you get the gist.
The Apple world has always been different. Like few other hardware companies, Apple knows it’s not the point-by-point feature comparison that matters, but the whole product. By paying attention to the product as a whole instead of trying to score on individual specification aspects Apple manages to beat companies like HP every time in user satisfaction surveys.
As a geek, the Slate appeals more to me than the iPad (although I still fail to see the relevance of tablets), but I can assure you right now that the latter is the better product for most. It might not beat the Slate point-by-point – but that’s not the, eh, point.
It just stood out to me from this slide.
HP Custom UI makes me squirm at the thought.
Edited 2010-04-05 22:42 UTC
Yeah, especially if they do as bad a job with it as they do with their other software.
Yet more crapware immediately deinstalled to make the thing usable.
There’s nothing different to the same stunt pulled with XP tablets, and look how they fared.
It’s just pathetic. By the time someone (other than Apple) produces a tablet with a good user experience, Apple will have already moved onto the next thing. It’s crazy to think that businesses can mess up their internal structure so much that it completely prevents them from being on the ball, let alone getting near it. HP are suffering the same internal crapfest that made Vista what it was.
Edit – Oh, and check out this piece of junk: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/fusion-garage-joojoo-review/ “The truth is we could go on and on about software flaws” … “The JooJoo’s integrated three-cell battery repeatedly lasted 2.5 hours … We will take this moment to non-tactfully remind you that the iPad lasts over 10 hours on a charge.
Edited 2010-04-05 22:54 UTC
ummm kroc? you do realize there are prefectly good UI’s for pad style computer that came out even before teh iPad right? such as MintPass, and it’s successor Sapphire (though that one isn’t out yet).
I have not heard of these!
It’s HP I’m complaining at, they keep shovelling the same crap and they really should be doing better. If tablets become common, then it’s the iPad I’ll recommend to customers because life is too short to be shortening your life with stressful, badly designed gadgets.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-thi…
http://daringfawnyball.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/expertise/
“While people will tolerate a lot of things, what we want are beautiful things that work well. There aren’t many nonexperts who can accomplish that. Expertise needs schooling, maturation, taste, and quite a lot of attitude.”
“Nobody needs to program an iPad to enjoy using it, except those who have no capacity for enjoyment other than programming and complaining about same.”
That guy needs a better brain.
“This was the weekend those of us with high standards lost their remaining residue of patience for ideologues who hyperbolize about open systems without actually creating something people want to use.”
Yeah, like the internet. People don’t want to use that.
Edited 2010-04-05 23:54 UTC
His only fault was that he leveled the rant towards the wrong people. The most vocal opponents are the ones who never actually create anything, ever. Ironically, the iPad is probably the ideal device for them.
Bad comparison; how often do DARPA make a big song and dance about openness and freedom?
As an aside, this whole argument is becoming ridiculously comical. Only politics and religion seem to engender as much polarised debate as the release of an Apple product.
Yeah, I know what he’s saying. My dad was gonna buy and iPad to have a laptop-like device to take with him on trips… you know, just for web browsing, email, and hitting Google maps while traveling. But, once he found out they weren’t providing schematics for the circuit boards, he decided to hold off buying one.
Edited 2010-04-06 06:24 UTC
ya i am not a huge HP fan either. especially after they destroyed the once amazing Compaq. I won’t even get into my ran on how awesome Compaq was and how great their computers were as far as quality and life span, features, price, etc… no no, i won’t get into that. and how OpenVMS was doing just fine with Compaq. no… thats a long rant for another time…. and i mean a long rant. anyone here who has read my rants and went, “damn, thats a long rant” then get ready for my Compaq rant some day. it will be song long it will have chapters and people will read it on their kindle and weeks later comment on how long that “book” was….
anyways. ya, hp kinda pisses me off these days. but dell isn’t much better (though they are starting to make a comeback). Acer, MSI, and Asus are my favs now (and Fujitsu and Levono, asuming your made of money)
I really hope you’re being sarcastic. Otherwise, you are the first person I’ve ever met (online or otherwise) with anything nice to say about Compaq. After dealing with their Presario line at home and at work (from the 486 to the P4), all I can say is “never buy Compaq”.
compaq computer lasted forever. their P4 systems were not the best, but no ones were. they were build to last and out of materials that were not intended to be replaced every few years.
Agreed, some of their products were actually very good.
Not the Presario line, the consumer line. Perhaps the business line was better. But all Presarios were crap, made from crap components that even the lowest bidder wouldn’t use. Everything is rebranded as “Compaq” hardware (usually Intel hardware) that won’t work with non-Compaq drivers. The motherboards and cases aren’t really AT/ATX formfactors. They’re just crap.
At work, we’ve turned down donated Compaqs as they just aren’t worth the trouble, even as thin-clients without harddrives.
Edited 2010-04-06 04:40 UTC
I only get the business class stuff, so i can’t really attest to the consumer line’s quality. Though i did have an early Presario model that had a cyrix chip in it and it was a great computer.
But ya, their business stuff was awesome.
I was a Novell administrator when the Compaq ProLiant first came out. That server (at the time) was 2x the server in terms of reliability, management tools, and raid performance, of thing even near it’s price range.
Compaq made some -very- solid mid range stuff back in the day.
The ProLiant servers were decent.
The Deskpro series of desktops weren’t horrible, but weren’t great. But the Presario line was pure, unadulterated crap.
Same for Compaq laptops: the consumer ones were absolute crap, some of the business ones were decent.
Well before HP bought Compaq Presarios were ‘the’ computer to get. Sure were better than the lab full of Gateway 2000’s we had. About one for every twenty warranty repairs on the Gateways, if that. I doubt very much Dell or IBM would have been any better.
After HP bought out Compaq I can’t say on as massive a scale but I did prefer working on them to most other brand’s as a bench tech. Parts were easy to get and replace without jumping through hoops, and they have the best warranty ‘service’ of any company.
Try handling warranty issues with any other company and you’ll see the difference. Forget it if you have a nice high end sony, just trash it and buy a new computer. Of course I build all primary boxes but I’ve owned a few HP Presarios due to price, and I’d buy an HP for my mother.
Only company that’s better if your a techie is Toshiba, because they’ll just send you the part. They also don’t inflate there warranty prices like all the others do so it’s often cost effective to get a replacement part out of warranty, that makes a big difference for laptops. That said if you don’t know what your doing they can be an absolute nightmare!
HP used to get a bad rap because of the volume. Been out of that industry for three years so thing’s could be a bit dated by now but I was in it for a long time.
You are getting it backward: HP didn’t destroy Compaq. Compaq bought HP, using HP’s money, and quickly destroyed the company culture. Very clever of them.
And I heard that they have a secret team which is designing a new Tablet based on Alpha processors and running Tru64 Unix.
This is the one I am uber excited for: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/06/icds-tegra-2-powered-gemini-is-t…
That’s exactly what I was talking about in the another thread! (http://www.osnews.com/comments/23114)
When any other OS company other the Apple will start doing decent software?
I’m here hoping Google will get it right, but the same way i’m not confortable with Apple’s excessive control, I’m not confortable with all my data on a server on the United States..
It’s a netbook with no keyboard. Boring. They couldn’t even bother to put 2 gb of ram in it? I’ve used 7 in 1 gb before and, while it does perform ok, it is just ok. Ram is cheap, an extra gig would’ve been trivial and would’ve made the user experience so much better. Seriously, aside from the HD-capable video, my Eee netbook is better than this.
At least Apple is offering something different than the competition, think what you will of their philosophy and practices.
I’m still thinking Android will eventually be the winner on tablets, but we’ll see.
I remember reading somewhere it would come with Nvidia’s Ion 2 (using Optimus for better battery life), guess I was wrong. That’s a shame though, would have made it really stand out against the iPad.
Utilising Maemo as their underlying OS.
A decent open platform to work from.
maemo is dead, long live meego
Exactly, this is what I thought when reading this from minute 1.
Problem is that Microsoft can’t do anything drastic without threatening it’s wide spread adoption and the very same is the reason why the slate won’t make a huge impact on the market in its current incarnation.
What HP (and other similar PC vendors) needs is balls to make some drastic choices in order to bring a User Experience which boils down to more than a faster CPU. Maemo would definitely be such a choice (Or Meego if you like, it’s all the same to me). These are lightweight, competent and consistent. Not to mention that at least from my perspective (and I’m certain from many others as well) it owns iPhoneOS any day of the week.
Now a completely different approach would be to go for Android, but for any slate a real webbrowser is obviously a necessity and here is where Maemo is the real thing. And the other real opp is to run for ChromeOS (is it called that?)
Obviously I can see how HP won’t be walking down any of these routes as it might damage their relationship with Microsoft.
Now to finalize this, I’m really not a big fan of the tablet concept today, I’m far to dependent on a real keyboard but as a 6th computer I might have one.
Edited 2010-04-06 05:03 UTC
I’m confused. What’s wrong with Android’s webkit-based browser?
I might have to rephrase that, but what I really meant was a full fledged browser in terms of having plugins such as Flash and similar. Maybe Android has this all ready and if so, then brilliant =).
They’ve been releasing tablets with Maemo for years and they are pretty good.
And Windows 7 is not perfect but still better than the OS on the iPad. It can play video in any format, it doesn’t need iTunes, it can multitask and it can run programs that don’t come from Applée’s app store.
“But it’s the user experience that counts!”
The user experience is crap when you have to convert a movie just to play it. I fail to see what is the point of the iPad. It does everything your iPod does but is bigger and more expensive and it can’t do more than that.
Yet it can barely get 5 hours of battery life…
Being three times more powerful then iPad, it does a good job consuming only twice more than iPad.
It all depends what you want the power for. I have no iPad (nor will have one until it gets a camera and a few other things if ever), but I don’t thing that cheap HP/Win7Trimmed thing is going to do better. For 5 hours of battery life we have Macbooks and some other laptops that run XCode…
To merely CONSUME content, I much rather have battery than “three times more powerfulâ€. (which, this thing is not but it doesn’t matter).
I thought the guy was talking about the iPod vs the iPad.
Anyway, if you want long battery life, buy an iPod. No real win with the iPad.
Isn’t the iPad supposed to get up to 10 hours of video? That’s double what the iPods get. That being said, supposed and actual battery life can be very different. A friend of mine got an iPad who also has an iPod Touch, and we noticed that while doing simple things like web browsing the iPod Touch drained at about half the rate of the iPad. This suggests that the iPad, while more powerful, isn’t as efficient as the iPod Touch which can get at least double the battery life on a much smaller capacity battery. That also suggests Apple’s battery estimates may be extremely optimistic at best, unless the video acceleration hardware is more efficient than the CPU. In either case, I’m sticking with my 1005PE. I have an iPhone OS device already (an iPhone 3gs) and don’t think I’ll buy another one despite some of the conveniences. In particular, I’m getting bit very hard at the moment by the lack of a user-replaceable battery in all of Apple’s new lineup; my iPhone battery is draining at 3x the rate it’s supposed to and it’s not a software problem. I won’t even consider an iPad unless they get replaceable batteries and that’s not likely to ever happen. No matter how much I like some of the apps, I don’t want to get a new device when, on any other device such as those from Nokia, I could just get a new battery for 20 bucks and solve the problem quickly. It’s not so convenient anymore.
Ok, done ranting.
Apple said that they’ll give you a new unit if the battery was a problem. When it was a problem.
The service is 105 U$S.
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/service/battery/
Which is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve had it for only six months or so, it’s still under their *limited* warranty which, funnily enough, doesn’t seem to mention batteries. Then they want another $105 from me because their battery went bad? At this point I’m considering cutting my losses and getting a Nokia N97 or similar and not having this problem ever again. On those phones, if the battery goes bad, you just replace it. No sending back your unit, no outrageous service charge, no hassle. This is ridiculous.
I thought iPads went on sale less than a week ago…?
I was talking about my iPhone, not the iPad though the iPad is likely to have similar issues because of the nonreplaceable battery.
Before taking such step, I’d consider taking a look at this: http://bit.ly/a1a2pa
You wouldn’t want to be disappointed again.
The guy was talking about the Win7 HP tablet vs the iPad.
Wait… I thought that one of the biggest “complains†about the iPhone/Touch was that for certain tasks, it was a “pity†that the screen was too small. The iPad brings a bigger screen. Do you seriously think there’s no “real win†? Have you played with one?
The problem with tablets is that they have needed an OS and applications specifically built to take advantage of the device and make life easier for those using them. Windows based tablets have never done that. The iPad has at least gone some way to rectifying that, but I’m still sceptical how successful this whole tablet thing really is.
I don’t know how successful they will be, but I got to play with my friend’s shiny new iPad and it was… well… fun. Oh, and the virtual keyboard is quite usable.
Playing with a new gadget is almost always fun. And a virtual keyboard is no fun if one is used to touch typing. Anyone tried pairing a BT keyboard to an iPad yet? Supposedly you can, unlike the iPhone which *should* be able to use BT keyboards but cannot. Apple’s iPad keyboard isn’t out yet and, knowing Apple, they’ll charge double what a decent BT keyboard would cost.
Two reasons why I’m not that worried about typing:
(a) Touch typing may be something you are used to, but we can adapt VERY easily to other forms of input, even when touch feedback lacks. Our motor processor is very capable of adapting to different context.
An example of this from the field of sequence learning (a subfield of cognitive psychology) can be found in J. K. Witt, J. Ashe, & D. T. Willingham (2008). An egocentric frame of reference in implicit motor sequence learning. Psychological Research, 72(5), 542-552.
(b) Apple has so far proven to be very capable of creating keyboards (both tactile and digital) that are very ergonomically designed, that is, designed with the user in mind. As I said in my http://www.osnews.com/story/22296/Review_MacBook_Pro_13_“>MacBo… , everyone touching the keyboard remarks how easily typing can be done. Equally so, I’m amazed at how well (and how flawless) I can type on friends’ iPhones. That is why I never worried they were able to pull off the same thing for the iPad.
One thing I will put up for discussion is the “landscape vs. portrait” keyboards. I’ve already read reviews that some people had a blast typing in landscape (as it hardly differs in size from a standard keyboard) but that it’s quite difficult in portrait mode. To return to #1, two variables are introduced in the context to “normal typing”, namely that the tactile feedback disappears AND that the keys are spaced closer together. No wonder it becomes more difficult then.
But I’m sure that we will soon see several comments appearing online that after several weeks of typing, people have found no problem typing blindly on their iPad, as they do on a standard keyboard. Maybe they don’t even want to go back, like I hate working with mice now I’m used to a multitouch trackpad.
EDIT: Turns out OSNews links don’t like quotation marks in the text between < a > and < /a >.
[i]Edited 2010-04-06 01:43 UTC
I wasn’t referring to feedback, but the fact that virtual keyboards often change. A keyboard in one iPhone app can have different symbols than another app. Hopefully this won’t be as much of an issue on the iPad due to its size, but on the iPhone it means you cannot type completely blind unless you remember exactly where each symbol is in each app. Compare, for example, the address field in Safari vs the email address field in Mail. I’m hoping the iPad will not have different keyboards for each app but rather just display a full keyboard appropriate for the currently selected language input. I’d love to try one, unfortunately I’m about 2.5 hours away from the nearest Apple store and am not going to plunk down at least $500 on the iPad without trying it myself first.
Another parent at our Den meeting (son is in scouts) had one and was planning on trying to pair with a bluetooth keyboard he has at home, tonight.
There has been two big problems with tablets that are the main reasons for the absence of the success of the form factor, but neither are the OS and tailoring of it.
Those two problems are price and screen size.
First the tablets have always been way more expensive than comparative laptops, and most people don’t pay more for a computer that can do less than a cheaper more power-full device. Simple as that. And HP repeats the mistake with this tablet, It’s basically netbook hardware, and most people don’t spend 549 EUR on a netbook.
The other ting with tablets are screen size, 5-7″ tablets are simply toys. Those tiny screens are not much better than that of your smartphone, hence most people don’t care and use their phones instead. To make an impact a screen with decent resolution and size of 10-13″ is needed. Unfortunately the common netbook screens with WSVGA (1024×600) is not a good solution, 600 is to low(perhaps the iPads non widescreen solution is a good compromise to get decent resolution).
Even though Thom insists that individual points are not that relevant in the whole iPad vs. [other_tablet] discussion, I myself do appreciate having actual specs to get a complete picture.
The iPad specs were provided on the day of the Keynote: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/
But, as the HP comparison points out, we don’t know about RAM or graphics on the iPad.
Actually… we do.
RAM
HP is in favor when it comes to RAM, having 1 GB in their slate as opposed to the iPads 512 MB. See http://www.padgadget.com/2010/04/05/ipad-dissasembly-reveals-intere…
Graphics
The ARM Mali 50 (part of the A4 chip) has graphics for 1080p playback just as the Intel UMA. See http://www.osnews.com/thread?406570
Camera
Engadget themselves already assumed that the iPad 2 will contain a camera, considering that the iPad SDK reaveals portions of it. See http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/ipad-sdk-3-2-beta-4-squashes-rum…
In conclusion
As a cognitive ergonomist, I consider tech specs the means to an end, namely that of a proper user experience. So after all is said and done, I must concur – look at usability and hardware-interface integration.
I may hope that HP has made a touch-ORIENTED interface, rather than a touch-optimized interface (which could still be a standard keyboard&mouse input interface with touch manipulation enabled). If they indeed have done so, then I’m sure they have a worthy opponent for the iPad. Props to their product developers!
I has a Toshiba NB205 with almost same specs.
Windows 7 was a dog on this system, I wiped the hard drive and installed Haiku-OS, and the system runs fine.
Wait, there`s more. I later installed an Intel 80GB-25M SSD, Haiku-OS maybe at most doubled in access speed. Windows 7, a whole new ball game. It must be at-least 5-8 time faster in boots, programs load in a snap, and general file access is not longer a waiting game.
NEAR ZERO LATENCY MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE FOR WINDOWS 7.
Since this tablet also includes a flash drive I expect this tablets to run fine.
I suspect that would depend on how many apps you have running, and whether they used good SSDs or cheapo ones. Fast file access helps a great deal, but it won’t help much if you open more programs than you have memory. In that case, the faster flash might help the swapping performance but at the cost of seriously degrading the flash storage faster than an hd equivalent. Like everything else, it depends on what you run and how Windows is set up by default. Having dealt with HP before my confidence isn’t high that they’ll do a great job with that. HP has great servers, but their default desktop setup is lackluster at best. Can’t wait to see what their custom UI is going to be, I hope they do a better job with it than they do with their other software. Still, how will a custom UI compensate when a program you wish to run simply has no touch optimization at all? The operating system is only one part of the experience, after all.
Well, I don’t use Windows much, only for encrypted wireless. 90% or more of my time is spent in Haiku-OS and that is fast on this system.
This suggests to me that for certain tasks putting another OS on the machine would be worth while.
With usable USB ports, small mice/keyboards will make it work as a net-book, then with even a simple mouse driver to make the screen act like a track-pad simple browsing or viewing the contents of files a snap.
Whoa wait! Haiku works fine on the NB205?!? Network? Sound? If this is true, I know what I am doing tonight!
Wireless now works, Ethernet requires the patch I have posted on Haikuware. Sound only comes from the internal speakers, I still can’t get the out-jacks to work.
The video port is great, when at home I run on an external monitor at 1280 by 1024. And battery life is over eight hours in Haiku, I think the longest I have ran it was 8:45 when I first got it. My optical mouse seems to use a lot of power, I lost about an hour’s life when using it.
And check out webpositive.
Trackpad? Does it work?
The trackpad works fine. It is what I use when away from the monitor/keyboard/mouse setup in my room.
That is why I think even if all you do is get the tablet’s screen to act like a trackpad (option in BIOS?) then it would become usable for most free OSs out there.
Can’t get my wireless to work. It recognizes it, but no DHCP…
Ah! Oh well.
To connect to a WLAN make sure that it is an unprotected (no WPE, WPA, WPA2) one that doesn’t need a password for login.
I’ll try installing the plugged in network driver and go with that.
only G and not N on the Slate? That seems strange.
EUR vs. USD is a huge difference. It’s $550 – $600 USD!
If it uses Windows 7, its boot time will probably be hundreds of seconds, which is not good for a Tablet computer.
I want a tablet so as that I can read the morning news while drinking my coffee in the morning…or when I am in the kitchen and want to check out a recipie…or when I watch a movie and I want to check out some facts about the actors. As it is right now, none of the tablets work for me: those running Windows 7 are slow and cumbersome to use, while the iPad does not support Flash.
Don’t turn it off. S3 sleep is the only way to live.
I agree. I think this where something like the Ubuntu Remix would shine. Man Apple has it figured out with the full package. App Store & unified interface.
Buy a tablet with Maemo or some other linux customized. There are many of them out there.
that HP will even sell this device.
1024×600 is the most useless display resolution ever. 5 hours of battery life is a joke nowadays, and it uses a full OS but only G networking.
This will be a flop. Then again, what HP product hasn’t been crap since Carly took it over and destroyed the HP Way.
Hahaha, I thought you were serious at first, but I finally got it at “only G networking”. Like you feel so constrained by having only 54 Mb/s on a surfing tablet.
Wireless G halves the bandwidth for every client connected. 54mbps is theoretical.
The best I have gotten is around 27~ Add another client and it becomes 13, another and 6.5. That is under ideal conditions.
But you are right… Wireless G isn’t the problem… it can’t do anything due to processor and display resolution anyway.
Tablets are all hype at the moment.. the ipad is a preliminary product purely aimed at suckers… anyone of those 300,000 people who purchased one have essentially bought into an already obsolete product simply by the fact that it doesn’t have a front facing camera and all the other parts that users expected would be included. So in 12 months when the new version comes out the same hype will be done but the competition from android and meegoo will be all over the place… I see these atom processor based systems as an intel buy in rather than a great product.. I mean 4 hours battery life? wtf.. probably actually end up being more like 2.5-3 if we go by what HP normally states for their laptops.. “9 cell battery 12 hours..” bought it.. more like “9 cell battery 8 hours”..
I can see a load of room for improvement and I really hope that there is more competition on alternative architectures.. we really need more competition in the processor market simply to keep intel ‘nice’…