Microsoft has only recently introduced its 12-inch Surface Pro 3 and it is now gaining recommendations from critics, but there's another big kid on the block that is up to challenging the Surface Pro 3's status in the 2-in-1 tablets game.
At the Computex 2014 in Taiwan Tuesday, HP has unveiled a number of its latest devices, including its own 12.5-inch tablet that can serve as a laptop and provides pen input support just like Surface Pro 3. But the HP Pro x2 612, which runs on Windows 8.1 with a Windows 7 option, is more of a laptop than a tablet.
The main feature that differentiates it from Microsoft's 12-inch slate-slash-laptop is its optional backlit, spill-resistant keyboard dock that comes with its own battery, separate from the battery that powers the tablet. This feature ramps up battery life to 14 hours for the laptop and 8 hours for the tablet when removed from the keyboard dock, which gives it a significant advantage over the Surface Pro 3's 8-hour battery life with the click-in keyboard attached.
The Pro x2 612 also comes with a built-in digitizer pen from Wacom, which has 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity. The Surface Pro 3 initially used a Wacom pen but switched to N-Trig because Wacom's sensitivity requires thicker tablets. That is where the Surface Pro 3, which weighs only 2.2 pounds, holds an advantage over the 4-pound Pro x2 612. The thicker tablet, however, means users can find on the Pro x2 612 a variety of features not found in Microsoft's tablet, including two USB 3.0 ports, a microSD card slot, microSIM card slot, DisplayPort, Ethernet sockets, a SmartCard reader and a fingerprint scanner on the back. The tablet also has a slot for the pen.
"Those are not things you can find in other tablets. We didn't want to make those compromises," says Daron Chalk, HP's product line manager for Windows hybrid products. "We made the decision to build this particular product as a true laptop replacement. The other product has a very different approach."
HP did not announce the price of the Pro x2 612, but it did say that the device will initially ship in September with a Celeron processor, with options for Pentium, Core i3 and i5 processors later. Storage starts at 64GB and can go up to 512GB, while screen resolution begins at 1,366 x 768 with the option to go for a full HD 1,920 x 1,080 display.
Sources close to HP say the Pro x2 612 will most likely be priced at a couple hundred dollars less than Microsoft Surface Pro 3, which is selling at $799 for the i3 version and $899 for the i5 model. Buying the optional keyboard also costs users another $130.
