HP Slate Leaks, First Review a “Meh” — Poof! First Review Disappears

The HP Slate, HP’s coming entry into the tablet PC market, aspires to be an iPad killer, and some publishers miffed by Apple’s hubris and restrictive policies may still see it as a welcome alternative. Earlier this month, specs for the device leaked, the most pertinent being its price ($549-$599), its processor (a 1.6-GHz Intel “Menlow” Atom), its weight (roughly the same as the iPad’s), and its battery life (5 hours, or half the iPad’s 10). Now, a Mexican site, Conecti.ca, has gotten its hands on a leaked HP Slate, and its inaugural review for the device is, in their words, a “meh.” (Apparently, Simpsons-based expressions of ambivalence know no language barriers.)

Oh, and after the wave of attention that first review started getting on the Internet yesterday, that review appears to have been pulled:

While we can’t find the original Conecti.ca post or any useable cached version, it’s left enough of a paper trail elsewhere on the Internet that its pertinent points have been preserved: The general complaint is that it’s not a tablet in the stripped-down Appley sense of the word, but is more of a netbook with a touchscreen than a new class of device. It’s a little thicker, it’s got plenty of external ports, it runs Flash (these latter two being good things, and iPad omissions), but in recompense it suffers from “long and annoying load times” [translation] and the aforementioned slower battery life. A mixed review, but not a death sentence, and since we don’t know just how long those load times actually are, there may well be a future for the Slate as a sort of beefed-up, more substantial tablet, though the price tag is a minus.

But: if you want to see any of Conecti.ca’s thoughts firsthand, you can’t. If you go to the Google Translated version of their initial review, you’re greeted by the following message:

By direct application of Hewlett Packard Mexico this post has been removed. The product in question will be reviewed later when the official presentation.

Thank you for your understanding.

If you want more information on HP products visit our previous publications .

English Version

By a direct request of Hewlett Packard Mexico this post has-been removed. The product show in this post will be reviewed Later in the official presentation.

Thank you for your understanding.

If you want more information about HP products Visit our previous publications .

Bet Apple wishes it could wield that sort of clout over Gizmodo, no?

You can’t blame HP Mexico for making the request, it being their jobs and all, but it’s a bit odd that the site in question would comply — and that anyone would think it’d do anything, given the archival memory of the ‘nets.

(Conecti.ca via Boy Genius Report)