Yesterday I trekked to B&H Photo, hoping to finally get my hands on the HP Slate 8 Pro.
No.
They had no demo model out nor were they inclined to put one out.
The only HP tablet they had out for testing was this pathetic thing:
I was not impressed.
But they had the HP Slate 21 All-in-One out, so I though the trip wouldn’t be a waste:
But overall it was a wasted trip. B&H’s WiFi is stupidly locked-down and neither the default browser nor Chrome could get through this next screen after signon:
So there was no way in hell I could even try my Google Books PDF test on this!
I was also very disappointed with the Slate 21 itself. The plastic is a garish and glossy white. The keyboard’s keys have a cheap feel and tend to move around. The mouse also felt cheap. Although this has a Tegra 4 CPU and should breathe fire, the touchscreen is apparently infrared, so you really have to sink your fingers down and there’s the usual irritating delay while IR figures out what you’ve just done. Moving through pictures in the Gallery didn’t have the speed I expected nor did pinch-zoom. Nor, did anything have the speed I expected.
The biggest problem for me isn’t limited to HP. All large screens share it. It’s this:
The screens aren’t Retina-class and the pixels pop out at me. It’s like peering through a scrim or window screen.
So, having seen this in person, I can now strike it off my list, along with the 21 Pro. These Android AIOs have promise, but not the way they’re being done today.
Let me repeat what I tweeted to B&H, so everyone else can see it:
https://twitter.com/mikecane/status/454692574385557504
https://twitter.com/mikecane/status/454760204903915520
https://twitter.com/mikecane/status/454760482428448768
J&R also had locked-down WiFi. Look what happened to them.
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