HP Slate 500 finally (finally!) official, rings up at $799
Nope, you're not dreaming, but feel free to pinch yourself, rub your eyes or take a cold shower! You've read right — the HP Slate is finally official, and after all the teasing, back and forth, and (very recent) leaks …
Context & Ripple Effects
HP has been teasing this device all year: back in January it was showing an Android-flavored Slate prototype, and by April a leaked spec sheet had it at just $549 with a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 and a five-hour battery. The shipping product that emerged on October 21 keeps the Atom underpinnings but lands at $799 — a $250 jump over the number that circulated for months.
That pricing puts the Windows 7 Slate 500 nearly $300 above where the iPad starts, which effectively defines the machine as an enterprise play rather than an iPad rival. After months of leaks and reversals, HP needed the announcement itself to signal commitment.
First-order effects
- Enterprise buyers get a full Windows 7, x86 tablet they can actually purchase today, with legacy-app compatibility no ARM-based slate offers.
- Consumers comparing against the iPad see a $799 sticker against a $499 entry price — HP's addressable audience narrows immediately to IT departments and vertical buyers.
Second-order effects
- Rival PC makers weighing their own Windows slates now have a public price ceiling to test: undercutting HP becomes the obvious move for Dell, Samsung and others courting the same corporate buyer.
- Intel benefits either way — every Windows slate competitor ships Atom silicon, while Apple's pricing pressure forces those same vendors toward cheaper components and thinner margins.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the tablet market splits structurally: sub-$600 consumer devices running phone-derived OSes versus $700-plus Windows machines sold through enterprise channels — with HP's own follow-through on this segment the open question after a year of flip-flops.
The trend: Tablets are bifurcating into cheap consumer slates and premium Windows machines pitched at enterprise buyers, with HP betting the latter can survive the former's price gravity.