Hewlett-Packard has rolled out two new tablets in its business product portfolio, the HP ElitePad 1000 and the HP ProPad 600 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
The two tablets are part of HP's on-going effort to make tablets more accessible to enterprise class customers. This is being done by using Windows 8 which the company feels will be easier for companies to integrate into their current systems than Android.
"Our tablets and mobile ecosystem continue to evolve to meet the growing transformation of the workplace," said Enrique Lores, senior vice president and general manager, Commercial PCs, HP. "The line between work and life has blurred to the point that it's now a true blend, where employees increasingly require stylish, business-ready mobile devices that don't make any sacrifices to productivity, reliability or security."
The ElitePad 1000 is HP's thinnest enterprise tablet to date measuring in at 9.2mm thick and weighing 1.5 pounds. It is positioning the 1000 as its flagship enterprise model and it is designed for use in harsh work environments.
The ElitePad 1000, shipping March at $739, has an aluminum chassis and is produced to the MIL-STD 810G Milspec standard and has passed HP's 115,000 hours of reliability testing level. The ElitePad 1000 It has a 10.1-inch Gorilla Glass 3 touchscreen that uses a Widescreen Ultra Extended Graphics Array (WUXGA) multitouch panel that the company says is viewable outdoors.
The tablet is sues an Intel Atom quad-core processor with 4GB and either a 64GB or 128GB solid state drive.
HP said it has the tablet running on the 64-bit Windows 8.1 OS so the device can easily be adopted by any business running Microsoft software.
The unit is available with an optional 4G LTE Qualcomm modem and the company has made available several optional accessories, such as the HP Expansion Jacket to extend battery life and the Productivity Jacket that includes a built-in keyboard, USB ports and an adjustable stand.
The HP ProPad is a step down offering that will ship in April. Pricing has not been set. It is intended to be just as robust as the ElitePad 1000, but with a scaled down feature set.
It is powered by an Intel quad-core Atom processor, 64GB of internal storage, a microSD slot for an additional 32GB of storage and like the ElitePad 1000 runs Windows 8.1 and its 10-inch display uses high-res WUXGA Corning Gorilla Glass display.
