Hasta La Gadget!

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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It would appear that NVIDIA is ready to power HP’s newest attempt at converging the mobile and desktop worlds with a transforming notebook/tablet machine called the HP SlateBook x2. This device works with a 10.1-inch HP touchscreen display, an NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor under the hood, and a version of Android that’s all but vanilla. Taking on the mantle brought up with the ASUS Transformer tablet/notebooks many seasons before, here HP attempts to make Android an all-day OS.

Inside this device you’ve got 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot that allows you to expand memory by 32GB, and 2GB of RAM. You’ll also be able to work with full-sized SD cards in a slot separate from the smaller cards. Inside both the slate itself and the keyboard dock you’ll find batteries ready to bring on a rather massive amount of up-time.

Sound will be handled by HP’s implementation of DTS Sound+, which sounds nice, but this device’s speakers continue to suffer from the dreaded back-facing syndrome that continues to plague the tablet universe. Until they head to the front, you’ll continue to get a bounced-sound experience.

The display on this machine is a 1920 x 1200 resolution IPS panel with some impressive viewing angles and 400 nit brightness. Through this you’ll be breaking out high-definition graphics at 224.17 PPI – not the densest panel in the world by any means, but certainly ready to compete with the rest of the 10.1-inch competitors on the market today.

This system is officially licensed by Google, meaning you’ll have access to the Google Play system for media – apps, movies, music, books, and the like. Android is a nearly-vanilla iteration with 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ready right out of the box. It’s not yet clear whether HP will be handling updates for the system itself in the future, or if Google will be able to send updates directly: once the final software build is shown, we’ll know for sure.

Above you’ll get a peek at an extended chat we had with NVIDIA’s Technical Marketing Director Nick Stam earlier this year about the NVIDIA Tegra 4 mobile processor. This processor is being delivered in the HP SlateBook x2, the first transformable machine to deliver it and one of the first devices in general to deliver it as well. Another high-powered example: NVIDIA’s SHIELD.

The HP SlateBook x2 will be available starting in August in the United States for $479.99 USD, while international sales have not yet been confirmed. This device will be released alongside a similar machine working with Windows going by the name HP Split x2 – have a peek at that machine and the rest of HP’s ever-expanding line of devices in SlashGear’s HP tag portal right this minute!

HP SlateBook x2 makes Android notebook a reality with Tegra 4 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Envy x2 has never been our favorite Windows 8 tablet, but that hasn’t stopped HP from selling loads of them. The device has been such a success, in fact, that the company is expanding the x2 series to make room for two follow-on products: the Split x2 (a Windows 8 hybrid) and the SlateBook x2 (an Android tablet). Starting with the Split (pictured above), this is the first time HP’s made a laptop / tablet hybrid with a laptop processor inside, though Microsoft and others have of course done this already. In brief, it’s a 13-inch slate with a 1,366 x 768 display and your choice of Core i3 or i5 CPU (these are Intel’s Y-series Ivy Bridge chips we’re talking about). As you’d expect, the keyboard dock packs a second battery, though it also makes room for an optional 500GB hard drive to complement the SSD inside the actual tablet. Other specs include two USB ports (one 2.0, one 3.0), HDMI, Beats Audio, WiDi and expansion slots for both microSD and full SD cards.

The SlateBook (shown below) is a 10-inch tablet with a Tegra 4 chip — one of the first to be announced by any company, in fact. Though it’s a companion to the $169 Slate 7, it packs considerably higher-end specs. There’s that Tegra 4 SoC, for one, as well as a 1,920 x 1,200, 400-nit IPS display and the latest version of Jelly Bean (4.2.2). As with other dockable tablets, its keyboard has a battery built in. Here, though, the keyboard also includes a shortcut for Google voice search. There’s even a laptop-style trackpad supporting multitouch gestures — a rarity on products like this. The hardware itself weighs about 2.8 pounds in total, with a spec list that includes two USB sockets, stereo speakers and SD / microSD readers. Both products will be available in August, with the Split x2 priced at $800 and the SlateBook x2 going for $480 (docks included). Now all we need are some battery life claims. In the meantime, check out our hands-on photos below. (Pssst: the Split unit we photographed was just a mockup.)

Filed under: Tablets, HP

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HP’s business PCs have always been surprisingly pretty. Not that good looks are high on our list of criteria, mind you, but at the very least they make a strong impression. Now that companies have gotten more comfortable with tablets (and Windows 8 in particular) HP is selling the ElitePad 900, its first Win 8 tablet built for the enterprise. Like all those EliteBook laptops that came before it, it has a metal chassis that’s not only sleek, but meets the military’s MIL-Spec standards too. Otherwise, it has everything you’d expect from a business tablet: support for pen input, mobile broadband and security features like TPM. It’s also being sold alongside various accessories, including some cases that add further functionality besides just protection from scratches. With a starting price of $699 for the 32GB model, though, it’s a little more expensive than its competitors. Does that mean it’s a little bit better too?

Filed under: Tablets, HP

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HP is announcing a new set of laptops which the company is focusing on small to medium business users with its ProBook 200 and ProBook 400 notebook PCs.  Both notebooks will offer various screen sizes and components to choose from and will retail as low as $249.

The ProBook 200 notebooks are HP’s value line with its HP 240 starting the line with its 14-inch display capable of delivering a resolution of 1366 x 768, an Intel Celeron processor all the way up to a second and third-generation Intel Core i3 and i5 processors, up to 6GB of RAM, 320 – 750GB hard drives and will give the consumer an option of including an AMD Radeon HD 7450M GPU, Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and Ubuntu Linux. The HP 250 features many of the same specifications, except it has a larger 15.6-inch display. The HP 255 also has a 15.6-inch display, but it comes with an AMD A4 and A6 processors.

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