HP Elite-Pad 900 review
The majority of today's tablets are aimed at consumers or target the
consumer/business crossover market. HP's 10.1-inch Atom-based ElitePad 900,
by contrast, is aimed squarely at businesses. It runs Windows 8, has a
good choice of accessories and is attractively priced starting at £623
(inc. VAT; £519 ex. VAT) for a model without mobile broadband.
Design
With its black screen bezel and silver outer rim, the ElitePad 900
has a very familiar appearance: at first glance, from a distance, you
could easily mistake it for an iPad. Look closely and you'll spot the
differences, though. The Windows button beneath the screen is an
obviously giveaway, while the device's slightly angled short edges,
which make the silver piping seem overly thick, aren't particularly easy
on the eye. Even the rounded corners manage to jar the eye as the silver piping
twists from being angled on the short edges to flat on the long edges.
None of these design niggles are deal-breakers for us, but HP could have
crafted a sleeker look.
Still, the ElitePad 900 is comfortable to hold. It has a starting
weight of 630g (rising slightly if the mobile broadband module is added)
and is admirably thin at 9.2mm, which makes it feel particularly good
in the hand.
The back is mostly silver and has a metal-look finish that helps keep
the ElitePad 900 cool to the touch. It might also be prone to scratches
though.
Buttons and connectors ranged around the edges include a volume
rocker on the left short edge; mirroring its position on the right is a
hinged cover which you release via a pinhole to reveal microSD card and
microSIM slots. The top edge houses the headphone jack, the main power
button and a toggle switch that switches automatic screen rotation on
and off. The system's dual internal microphones also sit in this upper
area.
On the back is an 8-megapixel camera with its own LED flash, while
the front camera has a 2 megapixel resolution. Both are capable of
shooting 1080p video.
The bottom edge of the chassis houses a pair of stereo speakers and,
in the middle, HP's proprietary charging connector. The sizeable
two-piece AC adapter with a fixed cable will be annoying to have to
carry around — but carry it you must, if you want to keep the battery
topped up.
The ElitePad 900's 10.1-inch screen has a resolution of 1,280 by 800
pixels, or 149 pixels per inch (ppi). This is a fairly ordinary
resolution compared to the 4th-generation iPad's 264ppi
(9.7in./2,048-by-1,536-pixel) display, for example, or the 300ppi
(10.05in./2,560-by-1,600-pixel) Google Nexus 10. The ElitePad's aspect
ratio of 16:10 might appeal to business users who do a lot of
spreadsheet-related work, although at this resolution text generated in
classic Windows mode can be painfully small to read.
Features
Running Windows 8 Professional, the HP ElitePad 900 is suitable for
use as a business tool in both 'modern' and 'desktop' modes. The modern
(Metro) interface looks great, but you may need to squint to see detail
when working in desktop ('classic' Windows) mode.
However, you're not getting business-notebook-grade specifications
here. The Windows 8 version is 32-bit rather than 64-bit, while the
processor is a 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2760
with 2GB of RAM. This will be underpowered for many business users —
think 'netbook' rather than notebook. If all you do is a bit of web
browsing, produce simple documents, check email and create
straightforward spreadsheets, then you'll be OK. But if your
requirements include more processor-intensive tasks you should look
elsewhere.
Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) is included as standard, with mobile broadband
(HSPA+) available in two of the four available models. There are two
models with 32GB of eMMC SSD storage and two with 64GB. To get the
maximum storage and mobile broadband, the current asking price at HP's
UK website is £713 (inc. VAT; £594 ex. VAT).
One thing you do get here is NFC (Near Field Communications). The
tapping area is helpfully marked on the back of the chassis so you can
find it easily. How much this matters will depend on how your business
values NFC, of course; we suspect that it's not a big draw for many
firms at the moment.
To get the most out of the ElitePad 900 in the office, you'll almost certainly need to buy into the accessories
ecosystem. This includes a keyboard that connects via Bluetooth, a
stylus pen, a docking station and an 'expansion jacket'. HP sent us the
dock and the jacket to evaluate.
The keyboard does not come in the form of a dock or have any way of
attaching to the ElitePad 900, so you'll need to find a way of taking
care of it in transit. Also, there's no housing for the stylus on the
ElitePad 900 — as there is on, for example, Samsung's Galaxy Note range.
So you'll have to find a way to stow this safely too.
The expansion jacket can accommodate a second battery for extended
life and costs £78 (inc. VAT) without the battery. It adds two USB 2.0
ports, a HDMI connector, an combo audio jack and an SD card slot. It's
bulky and will add a fair bit of weight (260g without the battery) to
your setup. The docking station (£94 inc. VAT) is small and
exceptionally heavy at 670g. The weight means that it won't topple
backwards when you prod the screen as with so many tablet docking units.
It's not intended to be carried, but to sit on your desk, where it
holds the ElitePad 900 at a good, but inflexible, viewing angle, adding
HDMI and VGA connectors, four USB 2.0 ports, a combo audio jack and an
RJ-45 Ethernet port. It also includes a passthrough power connector.
Performance
Given its specification, it's no surprise that the ElitePad 900's
Windows Experience Index (WEI) is mediocre at 3.3 (out of 7.9). The WEI
corresponds to the lowest component score, which went to Gaming Graphics
(3D business and gaming graphics performance). The other component
scores were 3.5 for Processor (Calculations per second), 3.6 for
Graphics (desktop graphics performance), 4.6 for Memory (RAM Memory
operations per second) and 5.5 for Primary hard disk (Disk data transfer
rate).
The ElitePad 900's 2-cell 25Wh Li-polymer battery should deliver
around nine to ten hours' life — although you'll get less with heavy use
of mobile broadband and/or GPS, in particular. Add a second battery via
the expansion jacket and you can double your uptime — albeit at the
expense of considerable weight gain.
Conclusion
The HP ElitePad 900's combination of a basic Atom-based tablet and a
range of optional extras is an expensive way to build a work-ready
system. Without the extras, it's hampered as an office device by its
limited connectivity and lack of a physical keyboard. We're much more
drawn to touch-enabledWindows 8 notebooks like Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch, or convertible designs like Dell's XPS 12.
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