HP has announced two new Android tablets that ship with a smart digital pen. The Pro Slate 8 and 12 use Qualcomm's latest digital pen technology, which allows the ability to take notes on paper which automatically appear on the tablets.
As sales of tablets continue to decline, slate manufacturers are looking for new ways to attract consumers. We recently reported that Apple is planning to release a larger iPad Air Plus/ iPad Pro with a 12+-inch display, and leaked images of the device's mold hit the Internet. Besides the larger display, reports have claimed that Apple will also ship the jumbo-sized iPad with a stylus that will likely prove popular with enterprise and creative users.
Samsung has already beaten Apple to the punch and has been shipping its Galaxy Note tablets and Galaxy Note phablets with its very popular S Pen stylus for several years. Now HP has done the same with the announcement of its new Pro Slate 12 and Pro Slate 8 tablets.
The HP Pro Slate 12 and 8 both run Android 4.4 KitKat, but the tablet's main attraction is its integrated HP Duet Smart Pen, which uses Qualcomm's latest digital pen technology. HP boasts that the "Duet Pen is the first to use Qualcomm Snapdragon digital pen technology on both a tablet and regular paper. The pen is part of the HP's Blended Reality Ecosystem, helping employees be more productive and create easily shareable content by writing and digitizing input from the device's screen or via a regular sheet of paper using the HP Paper Folio."
Unlike Samsung's S Pen, HP's Duet Pen will serve double duty by allowing users to use the stylus on the tablet's screen and also to utilize a more natural pen and paper note-taking experience, with whatever is written on paper automatically appearing on the Pro Slate 12 and 8.
The HP Pro Slate 8 features a 7.9-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 and runs Android 4.4 KitKat. It is powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB of RAM. The tablet is available in 16GB and 32GB options and includes a microSD expansion slot. Its camera capabilities consist of an 8-megapixel rear camera with Full HD recording and autofocus and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat. The HP Pro Slate 8 is available now with a starting price of $449.
The HP Pro Slate 12 features a 12.3-inch display with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 and runs Android 4.4 KitKat. It is powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdraon 800 processor and 2GB of RAM. The slate includes 32GB of internal storage and a microSD expansion slot. Its camera capabilities consist of an 8-megapixel rear camera with Full HD recording and autofocus and 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat. The HP Pro Slate 12 is available now and is priced at $569.
Check out an exclusive video demo we received from HP at the HP Pro Slate 12 and 8 unveiling below.
