HP quietly launches budget-minded 8-inch Android tablet

Shawn Knight

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HP has quietly launched a new low-cost 8-inch tablet simply known as the HP 8. Unlike many of the other 8-inch slates we’ve seen as of late, HP’s latest is powered by Android (4.2.2 Jelly Bean) instead of Windows 8.1 while the $170 price point does come with a few compromises.

Known officially as the HP 8 1401US, the tablet features a 7.85-inch multi-touch IPS display operating at a lowly 1,024 x 768. Under the hood is an Allwinner A31s ARM Cortex A7 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage and a microSD card slot should that not be enough.

android hp android tablet

The HP 8 also features 802.11 b/g/n wireless that is compatible with Miracast, a headphone jack, stereo speakers and a 3,800mAh battery good for up to seven hours. A 2-megapixel camera is mated to the rear while a 0.3-megapixel front-facing shooter handles selfies and video calls.

The tablet weighs 0.69 pounds and measures 200.3 x 136.3 x 7.95 mm with a silver finish. It also arrives with 25GB of free cloud storage and ships free of charge in the US.

If you’re looking for something that’s a touch nicer or would prefer a Microsoft operating system, the recently reviewed Encore or the Miix 2 8 might be worth a look. Both feature slightly better displays and Intel Bay Trail Z3740 chips as well as double the storage and better cameras. Pricing starts at $240 for the Lenovo and $280 for Toshiba’s offering.

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I don't see myself buying an android tablet anytime soon, have one and can't seem to get rid of it!

It was fun the first couple months, now it's a dust collector.
 
Just bought my old lady a Kindle Fire HD 7" for a $140 shipped.
8GB (4.17GB free with nothing installed), 1200 X 800 IPS (advanced polarizing filter w/ anti-glare technology), 1.5GHz Dual-Core CPU, 1GB RAM, and USB Micro-B.
She loves it and the Kindle OS/Silk Browser have come a long way, this thing is quite snappy.

A 7"-8" Android tablet with a measly 1GB RAM and 1024 X 768 resolution like the HP mentioned in this article should be $80 and not a penny more.
 
The old HP tablets, with WebOS... were terrible. I'm going to be wary of any tablets from HP, but keeping an open mind.
 
Just bought my old lady a Kindle Fire HD 7"...[ ]....
I'd check just to make sure you're allowed to call "the missus", "old lady", while publishing it on the interweb.

It could go sideways real quick, and you could wind up having to buy her an iPad. (Yuck).
 
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