It was only a few weeks ago that HP introduced its first laptop running Google’s Chrome operating system, and now we have HP’s first tablet running on Google’s mobile OS.

Unveiled today at Mobile World Congress, the HP Slate 7 is a 7-inch tablet running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and integrated Beats Audio technology.

While still committed to Windows, HP said it wants to offer its customers more choice, including access to the Google experience, and the Slate 7 is the company’s effort to do so in another form factor.

But it’s another device in an already crowed field of Android tablets, so how will HP try to woo customers? With a cheap price tag.

The Slate 7 costs $169 and will be available in the U.S. starting in April. That’s $30 less than the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD. Even so, it might be a tough sell.

There are trade offs for the cheaper price. The display only has a resolution of 1,024 by 600 pixels, and though it has expandable memory, it only comes in an 8 gigabyte model.

It’s powered by a 1.6GHz dual-core ARM processor and comes with a three-megapixel camera on back and a front-facing VGA camera. Battery life is estimated at up to five hours.

By comparison, the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD lack rear cameras, but both have higher resolution screens (1,280 by 800 pixels) and come in 16 and 32GB versions. The Nexus 7 also has a faster quad-core Nvidia processor, and as a Nexus device, it will be the first to receive the latest OS updates from Google.

The Kindle Fire HD, meanwhile, offers up to 11 hours of battery life and access to Amazon’s expansive content library.

A savings of $30 is nice, but a better screen, longer battery life and content might be worth the extra money in the long run. I’m hoping to get some hands on time with the Slate 7 later today, so check back here for some first impressions.

Also, there are rumors that HP is working on a high-end Android tablet, and while this may still be true, the Slate is certainly not it.

Categorised as: Chief Digital Officer | Digital Media | Feedster

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