Meet The SlateBook, a 14-inch Android Laptop from HP
Chrome OS may be about to get a rival in the Google-based notebook stakes — one powered by its bigger brother Android.
A promotional video from HP demoing a slim, lightweight notebook that runs Android was uploaded to the company’s official website recently, albeit hidden from public view.
Or so they thought. Technology site Notebook Italia was able to gain access to the short clip, which features the slogan ‘all your favourite android apps now in a notebook‘,
Called the ‘HP SlateBook 14‘ the device (naturally) features a 14-inch display with a ‘full HD’ 1080p resolution and is touchscreen. The video references a quad-core Nvidia Tegra chip and 2GB RAM, and 3x USB ports, an HDMI out and what appears to be a SIM card slot can be clearly seen during the various product shots.
No word on storage yet.
It’s The OS, Dummy
None of the technical specifications are, however, what makes this device unique. It’s the OS it’s running: Android. Google’s premier mobile OS is preloaded as the sole OS. No dual-booting with Windows, no optional Chrome OS.
What’s more, the device appears to have been given the official nod by Google as the video purports to show the Google Play Store onboard as well as all of the search giant’s mobile apps, including Gmail and Google Chrome.
And that’s pretty big news given that we’re told a Chrome OS/Android merger is not on the roadmap.
The discovery of the SlateBook comes almost one year after industry analysts KGI Securities predicted that Google would launch an ‘Androidbook’ running Android 5.0. While the thrust of that prediction proved to be wide of the mark, the sudden appearance of an Android notebook certainly feeds into the rumour that Google might be preparing a notebook-optimised version of Android.
HP is, so far, staying tightlipped on any possible release date or price point for the device. We’ll keep our ears to the ground and update when we hear more.
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