HP Slate 7 HD review

The HP Slate 7 HD has held up well enough so far, even if it hasn't managed to set the world alight.
In terms of essential offerings, the same can be said, with some of the many bugbears about Android 4.2 Jelly Bean still making an appearance.

Both the native Browser and Chrome apps come installed, providing almost identical experiences when browsing the mobile web.

One of Chrome's key new features is the ability to compress web pages, and that helps it stand out when combined with the free 250MB of data per month that comes supplied with the more expensive Slate 7 HD.

Full web pages were loaded on both browsers rather than sticking with the mobile sites, which is a big plus as it makes the most of the whole screen. Unfortunately, text reflow is missing from both browsers.

One of the biggest issues I have with including both browsers is that it takes up needless space.
Thankfully space doesn't appear to be an issue on the Slate 7 HD, with more than 12 of the 16GBs available left to store on a wide range of apps and movies.

You also have the option of extending this by a further with a microSD card up to 32GB in size should you find that you still don't have enough.

The Slate 7 HD also works well to contact others. While it doesn't come with the ability to make phone calls that some tablet phone hybrids have, the added data pass means that emailing can be done whilst out and about.

To do this, HP offers up the standard Gmail and Email apps. Both apps come feature-packed, with the Gmail app offering just about every feature that you can find on the desktop, and the Email app able to handle multiple accounts from multiple providers in a near-aggregated inbox.

Typing out messages is a little more difficult. I found that typing when in portrait can be quite hard because the 7-inch screen is just too wide for traditional texting-style typing. In landscape I felt that it just wasn't wide enough to type accurately and quickly, which is extremely frustrating.

Elsewhere are the music player and video playing apps. Actually, they're not there. I found this particularly peculiar given that the Slate 7 HD seems geared up as a media hub.

This meant that in order to play any media you had to locate it via the HP file manager, via the Google Play apps or through a third-party offering.

This was somewhat disappointing, as we felt that HP could have really distinguished itself from the rest with a top-notch media hub. The likes of the Samsung music player on the Galaxy Tab 3 and the Kindle Fire HDs are much better and show some thought on the behalf of the manufacturer.