Hands-on review: HP Pro Slate 12

The enterprise tablet market is chock full of powerful devices that offer portability, durability and style. Among the best available devices are the Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140 (starting at $699, £430, AU$795), a 1.55 pound, 11-inch device that packs 9 hours of battery life into a single charge. Also on the list is the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro (starting at $545, £549, AU$995) a large format 12-inch device driven by 1.9GHz Quad core processor.

If you don’t require enterprise-specific features, the iPad Air 2 (starting at $499, £399, AU$619) and the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Pro 3 (starting at $799, £521 and AU$988) should obviously be considered.

If you want a tablet that can do something no other tablet on the market can, you should look into the HP Pro Slate 12 ($529, £349, or AUS$646).

Specs and features

The thing you need to know about the HP Pro Slate 12 and its little brother the Pro Slate 8 is that both devices can turn physical pen-to-paper drawings into digital files. The Pro Slate uses a Duet Pen with built-in ultrasonic microphones that mimic the movements you’re making when you write on a piece of paper in order to translate images into digital files.

The transition from physical to digital is simultaneous. During my testing, I witnessed no lag time and no missed spots. The written image was identical in color quality and texture to the digital copy.

You’ll love looking at this device: it is built on a gorgeous silver and black bezel with speakers that line the top and bottom edges of the device. This impressively large tablet only weighs 1.87 pounds and is only 0.31 inches thick. It features an 8 megapixel front-facing camera and a 2 megapixel rear camera.

The screen features a 1,600 x 1,200 resolution Corning Gorilla Glass display. You can house up to 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM into the device. Connectivity options include 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and micro USB connectivity.

The Pro Slate 12 features a Snapdragon 801 chip, running on Android 4.4 KitKat, on a charge that will last for up to 10 hours.

Performance

In addition to the incredible written document digitization, this tablet also features snappy operating speed. Programs open instantly, even when media is being streamed over WiFi.

What you won’t love is the interference that may occur when trying to digitize notes off of slanted surfaces. Notes must be taken on a table or desk in order to be copied correctly onto the Slate. If you’re taking notes standing up or on your lap, you’ll likely not get an exact replica on the device.

The design is pretty slick, but I hate how much real estate surrounds the screen. Not only do you have about a half-inch of speaker at the top and bottom of the tablet, but there is about three-quarters of an inch of border surrounding all four sides of the display.

The screen is prone to severe light-bleed so don’t expect to watch Netflix with the sun at your back. When the room is dark, the images are spectacular, but if there is any light in the background your image will be affected.

I love that the Duet Pen has an ink tip as well as a digital tip. This makes it incredibly easy to go from physical writing to digital note-taking without having to swap out writing instruments. What’s also nice is that the ink tip won’t destroy the Pro Slate 12’s screen, so you can accidentally try to create a digital note with the ink-tip without having to scrap your entire device.

Early verdict

If you’re a student, or if you take minutes at meetings, the ability to turn written notes into simultaneous digital copies is magical. But this device isn’t a one-trick pony: it features a speedy processor, a sleek design and it’s incredibly light and portable. For only $529, the HP Pro Slate 12 is an ideal tablet for productivity.

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