Slate 7: HP's 7-inch budget Android tablet announced at $169

Hewlett-Packard is making a tablet computer that uses Google's Android operating system, steering clear of Microsoft's latest tablet-oriented version of Windows, the company said on Sunday. The HP Slate 7 will have a 7-inch screen, making it similar in size to the Amazon Kindle Fire. It will cost $169 when it goes on sale in April in the US. Alberto Torres, who signed on as head of HP's mobile devices division five months ago said the Slate 7 will use a relatively "vanilla" version of Android. The company is avoiding the interface modifications Asian manufacturers apply and the deeper changes imposed by Amazon and Barnes & Noble for their tablets. At $169 the device is aggressively priced, costing half of what Apple charges for an iPad mini.
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