It seems that HP is quite in a rush to get out an affordable tablet that will try to endear itself to budget-conscious buyers this coming Friday. Teaming up with Walmart, the PC maker will be selling the 7-inch Mesquite tablet with a very low price and somewhat low specs.

As far as 7-inch tablets go, the HP Mesquite is quite mediocre. The screen size only affords a 1024×600 pixel resolution. It has support for 802.11 b/g/n WiFi but no options for 3G. It does have a VGA webcam and microphone for making video calls. Internal storage is set to 8 GB, which can be expanded with a microSD card.

What makes the tablet somewhat different from other budget tablets is the fact that it is running an Intel chip instead of the usual cost-efficient ARM processors. It is, however, no beast. The Intel Atom Z2460, a single-core CPU that runs at 1.6 GHz, runs the whole show and is paired with 1 GB of RAM. This should be enough to smoothly handle the Android 4.1 OS running on it, but don’t expect jaw-dropping performance on resource-intensive tasks.

The selling point of the HP Mesquite is, of course, it’s price tag, which comes at a low $89. However, given that discounts and sales are most likely to happen soon, quite a number of sub- or near sub-$100 dollar tablets are likely to pry customers away from this HP device, despite, or may be even because of, the more popular brand.

VIA: The Droid Guy

3 COMMENTS

  1. I just bought this after all the chaos of black friday. And for the price tag its doing more than expected.
    Myself like many others I’m sure, who would like a tablet with out dropping so many hard earned “greenbacks”, will find this particular tablet to hit home. And yes the “impulse” buy was what did it.
    For a grand total of $106.97, I got a slightly above expected par tablet with a
    2yr insurance plan. Granted its no “HD MEGA-RESOLUTION camera/screen” I am positive
    Any individual who purchased this tablet will love it.

  2. I have just bought the HP7 tablet on Black Friday. I had received a no name Chinese brand tablet as a gift from family, which had been priced in the $150 range. The problem with it and most tablets that I have tried (those of friends and at stores) was the speed. They were soooo slow that there was no utility in using them for many business and home applications. This tablet has been very (emphasis on very) fast. I think the Atom processor is probably the reason (smart choice). I’m very satisfied with the purchase and the price is just right-below $100. Wish there was more memory as I start adding more Apps. The original packaging by HP is too plain; it doesn’t tell you about the type of tablet or its abilities. You have to buy it on faith initially.

  3. I agree with the other reviews. I got this tablet for 86.00 and couldn’t be happier. It is fast plays great video no lagging and so far it has done everything I asked of it well.
    It is well built and well worth the money.
    I tried two others in this price range and they couldn’t come close to this tablet in performance or build quality.

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