HP Slate 8 Pro review:a high end powerful Android tablet from HP

Written by B Johnson January 19, 2014
HP Slate 8 Pro Specs
Hi guys, welcome back!

Just a while ago, i showed you one tablet made by HP, which i think is really amazing in many ways.

That tablet was HP Slate 7 Extreme, a 7-inch Android tablet packing some powerful specs on it.

(HP Slate 8 Pro Specs)

HP Slate 8 Pro benchmarks and gaming performance

Well, this time, i want to show you another tablet that i also think is as great as HP Slate 7 Extreme.

As a matter of fact, this tablet is actually just so much way even better than the last HP’s tablet that i just showed you earlier.

The next tablet that i want to show you is also made by HP.

And it’s called HP Slate 8 Pro, an 8-inch Android tablet sporting a 1200 x 1600 pixel display.

And just like HP Slate 7 Extreme and Tegra Note, this HP Slate 8 Pro is also powered by no other than NVIDIA’s homemade Tegra 4 chipset, along with other similar features.

Well, if you’re interested to know more about this tablet, then please check out my personal review of HP Slate 8 Pro.

But as usual, before you go straight to this review, please allow me to give you the brief introduction of this tablet.

Introduction

HP Slate 8 Pro - Full tablet specifications/SPECS

The latest tablet line from this company is released under the HP Slate series. This tablet family consist a few tablets, but the recent ones are Tegra-powered tablets, from HP Slate 7 Plus, HP Slate 7 Extreme and the one that i’m about to show you right now, HP Slate 8 Pro.

If the other 2 HP Slate tablets are packing the 720p display, then this HP Slate 8 Pro will come with an 8-inch display sporting a 1200 x 1600 pixel resolution.

Design

HP Slate 8 Pro
In terms of design, there are some interesting things to write home about.

At the glance, HP Slate 8 Pro definitely looks like the iPad mini 2 (even the iPad Air). And that’s thanks to the same 4:3 aspect ratio just like on the iPad mini 2 and iPad Air.

Interestingly, this aspect ratio is not used on other HP Slate tablets, HP Slate 7 Plus and 7 Extreme, which both are adopting the 16:9 aspect ratio, the same one used on many regular 7-incn Android tablets out there.

I think the experience of using this tablet will be much better than on any 7-inch Android tablets with 16:9 aspect ratio given that with this aspect ratio, the screen real estate will be huge.

So doing things like watching movies, reading books or magazines, browsing the web or playing games will be a lot better.

However, the problem occurs when this tablet is used for typing. Unless if you have huge and long hands, you will find a lot of trouble when typing on the on-screen keyboards.

I think it would be a lot better if this tablet comes with the stylus, not to mention, its dedicated hole, just like HP Slate 7 Extreme.

The experience of using this "fat" tablet will be more pleasing, especially for typing.

The other great thing found on the design of this tablet is, its back cover.

Unlike its smaller brother, HP Slate 7 Extreme, HP Slate 8 Pro comes with a slightly different design, with more rounded and sleek finish all over the back cover, which kind of makes it look premium, although not as premium as iPad mini 2 with its aluminum-plated material or LG G Pad 8.3.

However, as i mentioned above, this HP’s tablet may not have that same premium material and feel just like iPad, but still, i really like how HP made this tablet with more professional looking design, although the overall look of this tablet really resembles the design of iPad mini 2 or iPad Air, thanks to its 4:3 aspect ratio just like on Apple’s tablets.

Back to Top
  • Released December 2013
  • 8.0 inch Capacitive touchscreen, 1200 x 1600 pixels, (~250 ppi pixel density)
  • Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
  • Nvidia Tegra 4 T40 S Quad-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A15 CPU
  • 8 MP Camera, autofocus, LED flash
  • microSD card slot for up to 32 GB
  • 16 GB Internal storage
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Bluetooth
  • USB No SIM
  • No EDGE
  • No Data GPRS
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band
  • No Radio
  • GPS
  • Java
  • Beats Audio sound enhancement
  • Non-removable Li-Po 5680 mAh battery
  • Up to 11 hours 30 min (multimedia) Talk time
When it comes to specs, this tablet is definitely so much better than its younger brothers, HP Slate 7 Extreme and HP Slate 7 Plus.

Besides sporting a much larger 8-inch screen, HP Slate 8 Pro also comes with some beefy specs, like:
  • a higher resolution of 1200x1600 pixels with pixel density of 250 ppi (which looks gorgeous and sharp),
  • a quad-core Tegra 4 processor with the clock speed of 1.8GHz,
  • 1GB of RAM,
  • 72-core GeForce ULP GPU (which comes bundled with Tegra 4 already),
  • an 8-MP camera on the back (as opposed to the 5MP camera on HP Slate 7 Extreme),
  • 5680mAh power battery inside,
  • Jelly Bean 4.2.2 comes pre-installed
  • and a bunch of other features.
With these specs, HP Slate 8 Pro is actually a quite good tablet, even great, in its class and especially price range.

As a matter of fact, with those Tegra 4, 1GB of RAM, 72-core GPU, a 1200x1600 pixel display, 8MP rear-facing camera, this tablet definitely deserves to be positioned as the challenger for other higher-end rivals, say, Google Nexus 7, Tegra Note 7, Kindle Fire HDX 7, iPad mini 2, LG G Pad 8.3 or Samsung GALAXY Note 8, in terms of performance and specs.

Screen

HP Slate 8 Pro may not have that higher resolution full HD display just like on its competitors, say, Google Nexus 7 (2013), LG G Pad 8.3 or Kindle Fire 7HDX, which are sporting the full HD 1920x1200 pixel display.

However, having the slightly lower 1200x1600 pixel display (which translates into 1600x1200 vs 1920x1200 pixel display on rivals), the experience of using HP Slate 8 Pro is still good though. The screen looks sharp and crisp especially in normal view.

The good news is, this tablet is only using an 8-inch display.

I mean, if this tablet is packing a 10-inch screen, with the same resolution of 1200x1600 pixels, then the screen will definitely look less sharper than rivals, although it still looks sharp given that the screen resolution above 1000x1000 pixels already looks insanely sharp for today’s standards, even for 10-inch tablets.

So watching movies or tv shows, reading books or magazines, browsing the web, and playing games, all will look insanely great and sharp on this tablet.

As the results, text on web pages, magazines or books will look clear, movies will look crisp, images or anything that you throw on the screen will look gorgeous and sharp in normal view, thus, eliminating the needs to zoom in zoom out the screen whenever you’re browsing the web and reading books or magazines.

Features

It’s too bad that HP Slate 8 Pro doesn’t come with its official stylus nor the dedicated hole on its back, unlike its smaller brother, HP Slate 7 Extreme which has these 2 elements.

So as the owner of this tablet, you will be left alone in the stylus party. unlike its sibling, HP Slate 7 Extreme, this HP Slate 8 Pro is not equipped with DirectStylus technology.

So even if you use a 3rd party stylus on this tablet, it won't have the same exact stylus experience just like the one found HP Slate 7 Extreme or Tegra Note.

User Interface

Just like the other members of HP Slate family, HP Slate 8 Pro also comes pre-installed with the same looking UI and other regular Android tablets out there, with the homescreen that you can fill with your favorite widgets, apps or shortcuts.

But don't expect this tablet to have the same other note-dedicated features and apps on HP Slate7 Extreme, given that HP Slate8 Pro is not a note tablet.

Performance

In terms of performance, HP Slate 8 Pro really screams.

With the monster goodies like a quad-core 1.8GHz Tegra 4 chipset, 1GB of RAM and 72-core GeForce GPU, you can do a lot of things on this device.

Too bad this tablet only comes with 1GB of RAM, which is considered as small for today’s standard.

However, with the beast chipset and monster GPU inside this tablet, you won’t suffer any lag whatsoever when executing many heavy tasks on this tablet.

The good thing is, HP Slate 8 Pro only comes with a light User Interface, unlike Samsung GALAXY or Sony Xperia devices that deploy some heavy software and UI.

So the experience and performance of HP Slate 8 Pro will be extremely fast and smooth because there are not many bloatwares or pre-loaded apps that will be running in the background memory.

So yeah, i think 1GB is more than enough for HP Slate 8 Pro.

This contradicts with other Tegra 4 tablet, Asus Transformer Pad TF701, that uses 2GB of RAM because this tablet is a productivity tablet, given its keyboard dock, meaning that it will need a lot of productivity features and apps that come pre-loaded on its software.

Back to Top
Just like Tegra Note and HP Slate 7 Extreme, this HP Slate 8 Pro is also a great gaming tablet.

Thanks to the monster power house of Tegra 4 quad-core clocked at 1.8GHz per core, 1GB of RAM and staggering 72-core of GeForce ULP GPU, this tablet is more than capable to run any games, even the most graphics intense games across the Google Play Store.

So if you love playing tablet games and always want to be able to play the latest Android games in buttery smooth performance and in full graphics, HP Slate 8 Pro has you covered.

The latest games like, Asphalt 8: Airborne, GTA San Andreas, Dead Trigger 2 or GT Racing 2 (along with the older games), all can be played on this tablet seamlessly without any lag and in full graphics.

However, given that this tablet is sporting a higher 1200x1600 pixel display (compared to the 1280x800 pixel display on HP Slate 7 Extreme or Tegra Note 7), then the gaming performance of this tablet may not be as fast as HP Slate 7 Extreme or Tegra Note 7, especially when playing some heavy games like GTA San Andreas in full graphics.

But overall, this tablet is still one of the best gaming tablets out there on the market right now.

Camera

On the camera sector, HP Slate 8 Pro is in HP’s good hands. It comes with an 8MP rear-facing camera, as opposed to the 5MP camera on HP Slate 7 Extreme and Tegra Note 7.

In terms of quality, don’t get your hopes too high that the camera sensor of this tablet will be able to take some high quality shots, as other rivals like iPads or Samsung GALAXY note.


However, it should be appreciated though having that high 8MP camera on this HP’s tablet.

Besides, we usually don’t take photos or videos with our tablets right? So as long as it can get the job done with some nice photos that are worth bragging on our Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, then this tablet is on the right track.

Battery Life

HP Slate 8 Pro is packed with the 5680mAh power battery inside.

This capacity battery is actually good, even great for this 8-inch tablet with 1200x1600 pixel display.

It may not be as whopping as the battery on iPad Air with its 8000mAh battery, or even the 9000mAh power battery on Google Nexus 10 or Lenovo Yoga 10 Tablet.

But still, having the 5680mAh capacity battery on this 8-inch 1200x1600 pixel tablet is already considered as really good for today’s standard.

With this capacity of battery, you can expect to see this tablet to last in one full day if you’re using it with some non-crazy normal usage, like watching movies, reading books, browsing the web, listening to music or playing games.

However, the battery life of this tablet will drop significantly if you’re using it to do some heavy intense tasks without resting the screen, like watching HD movies in marathon or playing games in the row, which is likely gonna last around 5 to 9 hours. And this is already considered good.

My Personal Opinions

So in conclusion, HP Slate 8 Pro really impresses me a lot. Just like the other Tegra 4 tablets i’ve been showing you guys earlier, Tegra Note 7 and HP Slate 7 Extreme, this HP Slate 8 Pro is no different.

As a matter of fact, it’s so obvious that this tablet is just so much even better than its 2 aforementioned tablets above.

It has much more powerful hardware specs, larger screen with better 4:3 aspect ratio, better camera, better design and pretty much everything on this tablet is the perfect version of Tegra Note or HP Slate 7 Extreme.

However, despite being the perfect version, there is still one part that makes Tegra Note and HP Slate 7 Extreme so much better choices than this HP Slate 8 Pro. And that is the lack of stylus and its dedicated hole on its back cover of HP Slate 8 Pro.

This actually could probably be the thing that will steer tablet shoppers to pick Tegra Note 7 or HP Slate 7 Extreme rather than HP Slate 8 Pro, given that these 2 rivals have those 2 elements (stylus and its hole, plus its dedicated features and apps).

Overall, i really, insanely love this tablet.

I really like how HP designs this tablet with the 4:3 aspect ratio, rather than 16:9 aspect ratio on other 7-inch tablets out there, which really makes the experience of using this tablet even more awesome and satisfying.

So yeah, HP Slate 8 Pro is definitely a really really great tablet to buy.

And if you playing games on your tablet, then you will be happy to have this tablet on your side.

Related Posts
Recent Updates
Our Top Picks
Copyright © GameTabletz.com. All Rights Reserved. Designed by B. Johnson
Reproduction in whole or in part or in any form or medium without written permission is prohibited!
Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Archives