HP first entered the tablet market with its Xoom tablet and then abruptly exited under the leadership of Léo Apotheker.
He was ousted (resigned) in September 2011 due to an indecisive strategy, is now back with their second tablet, the ElitePad.
This time new CEO, Meg Whitman, introduces to us the tablet that was developed to target the enterprise market. We have to say that this time around it actually looks like it might be a winner as they have not taken a me-too approach to their latest offering.
Officially named the ElitePad 900 tablet, it runs on Windows 8 with applications compatibility with the Windows world, strong enterprise security, long battery life, up to 10 hours, pretty much common offerings compared to other tablets out there.
However what is unique about the HP ElitePad 900 are two new features: the ability to service the tablet and something they called a smart jacket.
Unlike most tablets on the market, the ElitePad can be serviced by the IT department, this would include opening it to change the battery if it were damaged, screen, motherboard or upgrade it with more memory.
This is definitely something that we always wondered why Apple, Samsung or other manufacturers did not allow us to do.
And then there is the second unique feature called smart jacket which is pretty much what you would imagine, it the ability to add or customize the ElitePad tablet, tailored specifically to a particular industry whether that be restaurant or hospital. The smart jacket would allow for a barcode reader, credit card scanner or extended battery life and keyboard.
The ElitePad 900 is touted to be light and something that employees would be proud to carry around and available sometimes in January 2013 for about $700.
We think that HP has put a lot of thought into this and have made a tablet the second time around that will definitely appeal to not only the enterprise market but regular consumers as well. We can’t wait to get our hands on this one.
