HP Slate7 VoiceTab

The strange and increasing convoluted history of HP in the tablet world continues with an attempt by the company to produce … a phablet? Well, someone at the electronics giant probably reckoned, this company has tried everything else…

As the name befits, the Slate 7 Voice Tab is the bigger brother of the Slate 6, with both models set for simultaneous release in European markets in spring 2014. This 7” tablet is priced along the lines of the similarly-sized Google Nexus 7, but the offerings are naturally quite different. At £199 it has the Nexus 7 to contend with, but this tablet also works as a phone.

Though squat in appearance (9.7 mm is quite a lot for a 7” tablet), the Slate 7 devotes a great deal of space to the screen. Said screen is the standard mid-range 1280 x 800-pixel resolution – nothing to compete with a sharp-looking Nexus or Amazon Kindle device here, but again the phone capability is the main selling point in the Slate 7.

Just to make the phablet a bit more tablet-esque in terms of functionality, however, HP has outfitted both Slate devices with 3G and Bluetooth compatibility plus micro SIM, standard SIM and micro SD slots. The 1.2 GHz quad-core processor is pretty decent for a tablet of this price and size, while the up-to-date (as of this writing) Android 4.2 is the operating system.

In the end, we’re not 100% sure whether classifying the Slate 7 as a larger phablet is a disservice; with just enough tablet features and an excellent price tag, this one can certainly well serve the phone-first tablet user.