I think HP wants to get in on the strong sales of the Go for WFH that really accelerated during the Pandemic.
Mixed bag spec wise with a slightly larger and higher res screen.
And it has “Glam Cam” …No I’m not making that up 
Quick take is that it is very well made like the Go, but is about $1000 overpriced
EDIT: It also has a bit of a weight problem as the tablet alone is about 1/3 lb heavier than the Go. though it does include the keyboard in the box
Meh. HP is so squirrelly. The OG 1100 tablet pc was phenomenal. The Slate 500 was extraordinary for the components available at the time. I had one of the 2730’s with the swivel and close screens; great specs for the time.
All of them sort of died on the vine. If M$ births a form factor to prove it can be done, HP would do them one better and then orphan the device (See also HP’s beautiful Elite X3 windows phone) or do something stupid like try to create yet another pen system.
Maybe that’s better than announcing and cancelling before delivery (Surface Mini, Neo, etc.).
ADDENDUM: If I have time later, I may dig out my HP Slate 500 and post some comparison photos to the iPad Mini 6. To repeat the old refrain: “I WANT WINDOWS IN AN iPAD FORM FACTOR!” (had to break the new place in.)
Agreed.
We didn’t formally test it, but we did get some hands on with it. It seems to be a Windows variant of the same overall design of the recently released ARM Chromebook tablet.
Weird design choices though. On the plus side, it seems to have the same display as that chromebook, which if that’s the case it’s a way above average panel with very good color gamut, decent brightness , and is quite accurate calibration wise, right out of the box.
It also has a decently fast SSD versus the emmc drive in the lowest end Surface Go.
Two things puzzle me though, one being in the choice of a Pentium Silver in the HP versus Pentium Gold in the Go. While neither are what I’d call quick, the Silver is (in our tests anyway) about 20-25% slower than the Gold in aggregate.
And to further kneecap it, it only has 4GB RAM. We’ve wondered if that isn’t in part and effort by MS to promote the notion that Windows is as efficient an OS as what MS sees as their two competitors in the space, Chromebooks and iPads
Additionally, due both to the processor and OS it looks like they put a bigger battery in it compared to the Chromebook version, likely to get at least somewhat comparable battery life but with the downside of a heavier device.
I will say though that HP generally has significantly upped its build quality in all of their named product lines (eg. Envy, Spectre) and based our hands on, it had a very high quality feel to it.
One possible deal breaker for us here is that it’s not clear if it will have Pen support. This SKU from best buy doesn’t and the one we saw in person didn’t either, but OTOH the display and digitizer this appears to have does support USI pens.
Wonderful. 
They finally updated the HP Slate 500, 11.5 years later, with 2019 internals - how quaint.
OEM should really stop cutting corner on the RAM. 4GB used to be acceptable back in Windows 8 and early Windows 10 days, but with the recent years update it’s just not enough. My old Atom Cherry trail tablet had acceptable performance back in the days, but after some Windows 10 updates, it became super sluggish with just the system running (3.5/4GB used), and wacom pen performance became slower than drawing via a wifi connection.
Even budget Android phone these days got 4gb (for ~150$ low end phone) or 6GB RAM (200-300$ phones). Entry level minimium RAM on Windows should be increased to at least 6.
To add insult to the injury, most of those cheap laptops RAM are soldered to imitate the thiness of high end device.
This HP looks like it is more expensive with lower spec than the Go 3, not sure about the pricing decision.
Yes. It’s a curious device. The Pentium Silver is, simply, a bad choice. So is the 4GB RAM. I do like the pins on the side so that you can work in Portrait and the multi-position kickstand. Microsoft needs to think about this option.
A device like this needs more power. I am, after a couple of years of ownership, starting to run up against some issues that make me want a more powerful CPU.
Nice try HP, but no cigar.
In fairness to HP though, my ZBook X2 has always had a high quality feel to it, as did the TC1100 and the Slate 500, among others. Those latter two devices may not have had the very best innerds, but they were typical for their times. As for my X2, it’s still my go-to platform for some tasks (although my SP 8 is starting to edge it out in some areas).
As for toughness, my daughter, who is a special education teacher in the local school system, has owned two HP laptops which have both gotten absolutely beat to hell. I finally bought her a new HP laptop because I finally couldn’t stand to see her working on a laptop with a huge crack running across the screen (which still worked, by the way)…
So in my book, HP is OK, if occasionally weird. At least they keep trying!
+1
I LOVED the leather Spectre Folio design and function, but absolute dog internals and overheating constantly; the Spectre x360-14 has been one of the BEST computers I’ve ever owned. They DO keep trying…
Urrrgh. Then it makes you wonder why they’ve gone all in on Chromium. I mean sure, the modern web has a lot of features, but Chromium is still such a memory hog. The mobile OSes (iOS included) are very trigger happy about putting processes to sleep to get around memory and power usage, but one of the most appealing things about Windows is that you have control over that.
I suspect that might actually be the processor causing the lag, which this with a modern Pentium shouldn’t suffer as much from. Windows tries to allocate as much RAM as it can, but it can free quite a bit up when needed (RAM not used is largely RAM wasted). 4GB is still tight, especially with it needing to be shared with the iGPU on such devices, but it should still be perfectly usable so long as you don’t go ham on layers, tabs or the like.
As someone who had a viao flip back in the day, I’ve always loved the pull forward convertible and very much loved the idea of the leather spectre folio. The tc1100 was my very first tablet, followed by a spinning one, the somethingsomething30p, I think. HP does alright in the tabletsphere.
I meant it took 3.5GB with just the windows system running. It definitely wasn’t like that in earlier version of Windows 10. Buying a new Windows 10 device with only 4GB soldered in is not advisable in 2022, and it definitely shouldn’t be marketed to people if they just leave 500mb of RAM for users to do their own stuff.
Again, Windows will allocate spare memory as it still needs to be powered so might as well be used.
I’m not on Windows 10 anymore, but I never remember only having 500MB of RAM only being available to programs, and it certainly doesn’t happen to me with Windows 11.
4GB is pushing it, but it is by no means unusable for browsing, office work, light coding or some lighter art programs. Don’t expect to get all that done at the same time, but by that point the CPUs/APUs used with 4GB of RAM also struggle.
To @Tams point, to say Windows memory management is complex is a major understatement compared to any other mainstream OS including mobile OS such as Android or IOS.
Going all the way back to Windows 2000, but increasing/accelerating with each new version of Windows including subsequent feature updates to Windows 10, and adding a new dimension with Windows 11, the OS has a far more active and dynamic method.
To perhaps oversimplify, what most of us were taught and Mac OS and various Linux distros (with one notable exception) is that the OS and its libraries, and then apps that you launch fill up active RAM and then when it gets “full” it starts swapping out to disk (aka the swap file we all are used too).
Windows, starting with Windows 2000 will do two major things which is to proactively write some stuff to disk to free up some RAM even if it’s not technically full. Prior to Windows 10, this swapping was done primarily through programmed routines and if/then subroutines in software. Starting with the first major feature update to Windows 10 Pro, MS started using AI and machine learning which attempted to watch what the user actually did and then adjust the criteria of when/what accordingly.
And then now with Windows 11 it gets considerably more “speculative” for lack of a better term and also much more active, almost constantly swapping stuff between RAM and disk, regardless of what is happening at the moment.
The original intent of all this was a good one, which was to improve perceived user responsiveness (aka reducing the appearance of the various loading messages/graphics).
And I’d argue that’s been a good approach, especially considering how “stuffed” Windows can get as the OS as well as various libraries used by apps get loaded, coupled with the still, relatively speaking low amount of RAM in most users’ system. We’ve seen it estimated that in aggregate in the total user base, the amount of RAM just reached the 4GB level around the introduction of Windows 11.
Now you can make a solid argument that this is somewhat of a chicken and egg scenario with MS reluctant to raise RAM requirements on OEMs and thus the OEMS continuing to “low ball” RAM especially in consumer level systems.
And as an aside, with Windows 11, MS borrowed a page from Apple by embracing SSD as the “default” now in systems with their orders of magnitude faster read/write speeds compared to conventional spinning drives. And thus the nearly constant now, read/write behavior people have observed. And it has the unfortunate side affect on users that still have systems with spinning drives of making them feel significantly sluggish.
So TLDR, we think that for a significant segment of the user base (definitely not those here) MS has made the assumption that the performance gains that would come with specifying higher minimum RAM would not be worth the higher costs that would go with systems.
I am not totally endorsing that view, but I’m not dismissing it entirely either. And when you add in the fact that MS has and continues to be completely freaked out by the rapid rise of Chromebooks which of course are lower spec (and thus lower cost). And thus you also see things like the new education only Surface Laptop which is low spec (4GB RAM) and lower cost.
2nd TLDR, for the user likely to buy this system, they are more likely to buy at a $599 price point with 4GB RAM than a $699 price point to accommodate 8GB RAM.
OTOH if I was in sales and were actually able to get a buyer to actually consult with me, I’d have no problem with “upselling them” to the Surface Go config with 8GB RAM and 128 GB SSD with keyboard, for only $50 more. Unfortunately, the opportunity to do that continues to diminish with more and more purchases occurring online.
PS: For those that were wondering if in the new home here if I would still occasionally get up on my soapbox and/or wax voluminous, this post should put that question to rest 
So, MS has locked its users into an LCD (lowest common denominator) solution? HP’s not even offering an 8gb RAM SKU. The real issue that PO’s me to no end is that RAM and SSD have become major profit centers - look at the outrageous premiums MS and Apple get for more of either/both? And with MS it’s even worse when their best premium computer STILL charges you separately for the keyboard and pen that are basically essential to the functioning of the Surface Pro and GO…
Seems a bit pricey for the specs, no?
@Bloodycape Yes that’s what I mean by strange design choices.
So, some related info to what I posted previously.
One of our larger tablet centric customers (a mix of surfaces, iPads, and Lenovo devices) got some marketing fluff from MS in the last few days around Teams, and this new HP is featured almost ubiquitously in many of the photo shots. So that tells me that HP with possibly a nudge from MS is positioning this as a relatively low cost WFH/Teams/Office device.
Data point number two: The biggest push back against the lowest end Surface Go we’ve heard isn’t around the performance, but the small amount of base storage (64GB) eg. when you fully "load out " a typical corporate device with all the associated apps and data etc. 64GB is a bit tight. To that specific point, through their business purchasing group they offered a 128 GB EMMC storage model Of the Go 2 as a qausi- custom option eg. you had to commit to purchasing at least 40 in a single pop.
Data point number three: Related to the above, as of right now, a 128GB EMMC module is very hard to find in the supply chain, and if you can find one, they are actually going for more money than a lot of lower-end 128GB SSDs. This is definitely a supply chain related anomaly as 64GB EMMC s are almost 40% cheaper than a comparable 64GB conventional SSD.
Data point number four. Supporting that idea that this is either/both a teams-oriented device and or a focus group aimed device with some unique features.
First is that absolutely stupidly named (IMHO) “glam cam”. Dumb name aside, on paper anyway it is one of the best specced and more versatile web cams in a shipping device. Easily comparable to the front cams in the latest iPads
And related to that is the keyboard option to connect to the main unit in both horizontal AND vertical . That’s nearly unique and the surface can’t do it. And is interesting to me personally for a couple of fringe use cases.
But if you stop and think about it, what demographic is very much accustomed to doing cough- FaceTime- cough… I mean video conferences in a vertical orientation.
So TLDR I stand by my opinion that it’s an odd mix of features and specs, but there are possibly both market and supply chain forces behind them. I also stand by my assertion that it’s about $100 overpriced…
PS: One other notable thing is that on paper at least, the new HP has a significantly better display than the Go in almost every aspect. Not that the Go display is bad per se, (for the cost of the unit, it’s actually quite good) but more that this is just in different class overall.
I found out this morning that one of our customers is interested enough in these to purchase a couple to evaluate and they are submitting one to us for certification. When/if we get one, I’ll post the results back here.
PPS: Sorry for the long post again, I seem to be on a roll the last few days
And I came across this today. No knowledge about it other than what’s in the article.
Notable aspects are one, the larger (13 inch) OLED display, albeit with a 16;9 aspect ratio (likely the same Samsung display that is in the Lenovo Duet 5)
Second is the specified pen support. Third is that it does have 8GB RAM
Still has the same Pentium Silver chip though
Asus Vivobook 13 Slate OLED (T3300) review: A 2-in-1 detachable with a difference (msn.com)
Is Intel going to be making x86 chips in that $20B Ohio plant, or M3’s for Apple???
That’ll depend on how competitive Intel’s node is.
