HP Slate 7 HD review

Battery life

Exact battery power for the HP Slate 7 HD isn't included, with the HP site offering up the information that it is a 15 WHr battery.

Before I even get to usage, one of the biggest problems I found with the battery is the length of time that it takes to charge. After three hours of charging, the Slate 7 HD was still languishing on 29%. This certainly isn't a tablet that you can top up quickly before popping in your bag.

Throughout daily usage, though, the battery seemed to fair well. A standard day of web browsing whilst sat at home and an hour of Skype calling still left the HP Slate 7 HD with enough battery to be used the next day.

This can be attributed to the lower power of the cores not producing significant drain. It also meant of course that I had no desire to play battery intensive games, due to the poorer performance.

When running the 90-minute HD video battery test, I found that the battery dropped by 28%. This means that the Slate 7 HD will be able to cope with around six hours of HD video. That's by no means an impressive figure, but enough to last you a typical day.

Compare that to the 20% drop noted on the Nexus 7 and the ability to get nine or 10 hours of video usage out of the Kindle Fire HDX and you can start to build up a better picture. The HP Slate HD 7 is sufficient, but is by no means the best available.

Just like the rest of the Slate 7 HD, the battery life produces a pretty average performance. It's ideal for taking out for the daily commute to work and for light web browsing while sat in front of the TV, but as with every other aspect, throw some heavy lifting its way and the Slate 7 HD starts to suffer.

Connectivity

One of the more important parts of the Slate 7 HD's specs sheet is its connectivity. Whilst it is true that there is a cheaper version of the Slate 7 HD, with only 8GB of internal and no 3G connection, we can see no reason why you would opt for it.

Alongside this free 3G data connection comes Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, and it is also Miracast compatible for sharing your screen with a larger display. This makes it ideal for showing off in presentations.

The Slate 7 HD also comes GPS enabled, which coupled with the 3G data pass means that the HP tablet can make a decent substitute for a satnav.

Although mounting a 7-inch tablet to your windscreen or dashboard isn't exactly the best idea.