News - HP starts to ship its SlateBook 14 Android laptops

[HEXUS]

The devices are priced at $429, which is $30 more than originally announced.

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[tigertop1]

Does it upgrade to Android 4.4 Kitkat? if not why not?

[eiamhere69]

With it being an arm powered device, these shouldn't overheat, but I'm sure HP have figured how to break them by now.

[wasabi]

Will be interesting to see if yo ucan mount USB storage devices without rooting it?

[crossy]

Does it upgrade to Android 4.4 Kitkat? if not why not?

Not sure about a KK upgrade, personally I can't see why the darn thing didn't ship with KK, but then again HP aren't the only ones to do this.

With it being an arm powered device, these shouldn't overheat, but I'm sure HP have figured how to break them by now.

Troll? (PS I'm sure that there's a way to get any Tegra device to overheat).

Will be interesting to see if yo ucan mount USB storage devices without rooting it?

Hmm, serious question - it's got three USB ports and given it's a touchscreen device with a keyboard what else would you use those ports for other than storage? I checked out Amazon's (.com) reviews and at least one specifically mentions being able to use a flash drive on the SB14.

That said, (and being disloyal), I'd prefer to spend my money on an Asus Transformer.

[Dooms]

Why Android and not ChromeOS?

[scaryjim]

I'd love to know which customers have been "demanding" a 14" Android Laptop at the same price as a comparable Windows one. Seems like a whole host of odd choices to me....

[crossy]

Why Android and not ChromeOS?

Presumably because someone in Palo Alto decided that they'd already got Android tablets and Chromebooks, so they needed a "cross over" product to compete with the Asus Transformer.

That said, I'd have this (assuming the same pricing) over a Chromebook any day - ChromeOS still seems to me to be a completely unnecessary product.

[Myss_tree]

It looks (aesthetically) a nice machine.
Could do with more storage.
Why don't they (as in any manufacturer) make the card reader also writeable or are they wrieteable and its taken as a given that people will know this?

[candysmith]

I hope it can have more storage

[crossy]

Could do with more storage. Why don't they (as in any manufacturer) make the card reader also writeable or are they wrieteable and its taken as a given that people will know this?

I hope it can have more storage

It comes with 32GB storage which is pretty standard for this kind of device. And remember this is Android so doesn't necessarily need the vast swathes of storage that would be the case if it was "proper" Windows.

It's standard to call a card slot a "reader", this does NOT mean that it's read-only. Given that it's micro-SD rather than the full size one (which would be a heck of a lot more useful!) I think it's a pretty safe bet to assume that HP's intending that you use this as secondary storage. Last time I bought uSD it was less than £30 for 64GB and, (he says quickly checking Amazon), you can get 128GB for less than £80. Failing that, I'm pretty sure that those USB ports could hold an external HDD and it'd be easy to get an SSD to keep the power drain down.

HP UK's site is listing this for £329 including a rucky. Downside is that for that kind of money Amazon will sell you a Transformer TF701 or Transformer Book T100 and give you change. Those are both convertibles, so you can also use them as tablets, and the T100 is "proper" Windows to book - although I guarantee that the 32GB of storage will prove to be a big limitation.

At £229 I'd consider the Slatebook 14, but at £329 it's too expensive.

[tribaljet]

Will be interesting to see if yo ucan mount USB storage devices without rooting it?

It would likely have OTG support that would enable host capabilities. However, whether that's limited to mass storage or actual support for modems, DACs and other input devices, that's yet to be known.