HP Slate 6 Voice Tab

If large phones are your thing, this Android tablet is a good option

HP has had several attempts at making phones earlier, with its iPaqs which were my favourite, to its acquisition of Palm later, but with its third major attempt in the phone market, HP seems to have a winner on its hands—albeit with some shortcomings. I used its Slate 6 Voice Tab extensively over a three-week period before and after its launch to find out how it is, and here is my take.

The moment you take the Slate 6 Voice Tab in your hand, you notice how nicely built it is. Its beautiful IPS display comes up with rich colours; with chrome all around its body and a shiny texture on its back panel, the device feels good in your hand. Its finish is rather premium.

Running a Quad Core 1.2GHz Marvel PXA1088 processor, and with 1 gigabyte of RAM, and loaded with Android 4.3, the phone manages to take on everything you throw at it—gaming is seamless, it manages multi -tasking easily and your apps load and get cracking quickly. It also has 16 gigabytes of onboard storage, which can be expanded by using a micro SD card of up to 64 gigabytes, offering you plenty of space for your videos, songs and documents.

With its 1280×720 resolution, the IPS screen puts out some great pictures; only when you look at it closely do you realise that the screen is not fully hi-definition. The phone also features dual-front firing speakers, making this a great option for multimedia content.

The phone weighs 160 gm and feels light in one’s pocket. But the screen is only six inches, which means it is inadequate as a content creation tool. As a consumption device to browse the internet, though, or check a few documents on the go, the Slate 6 does perform pretty well.

It takes two SIM cards, and its battery life is long. I didn’t need to charge it till the end of a second day. It also features an FM radio, and offers a headphone jack and micro USB 2.0 port for charging and data sync.

The device has a 5 mega-pixel camera with an LED flash at the back and a 2 mega-pixel front-facing camera. Both work well outdoors but—alas— not indoors. In a premium product, this is a let down.

Still, if you like large phones that run Android, the HP Slate 6 Voice Tab is a great buy.

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