With this weekends news of the iPad’s impending arrival, HP took it upon themselves to give us a little peek and some more information about the HP Slate running Windows 7. While we already knew of the device, one key element of the Slate over the iPad will be the availability of flash for web browsing. Phil McKinney, vice president and Chief Technology Officer for HP’s Personal Systems group commented, “With this slate product, you’re getting a full web browsing experience in the palm of your hand…No watered-down internet, no sacrifices.”
Personally, I don’t believe that Steve Jobs can call the iPads web browsing experience the “best-ever” when it lacks the one component that is used so widely, flash.
Courtesy of Wired.com
We still do not have the price structure and schedule of availability for the HP slate. I would guess we should see it by Q3 or early Q4 at the latest, but I’m hoping for a spring or summer release. It also appears that HP has layered the Windows 7 OS with it’s own proprietary software for browsing and launching programs, which can be seen here in this video.
What about you guys? Is the lack of flash support a deal breaker? Will the Slate’s extra features be able to rival the brand name and app ecosystem that Apple has created? I believe that if HP can get the pricing right and deliver hardware that won’t skip or lag, we might see a very capable device suited to take on the iPad.
Sources: Wired.com
