Hi there, I recently purchased a new HP tablet to replace my old Tesco Hudl. I wanted a new tablet because the Hudl was starting to get annoying, apps were crashing and it was very slow, plus I never really got on with the Android operating system.
So, my new tablet had to have an operating system other than Android, so all or most Samsung and Sony tablets were out of the question and not too expensive either, so iPads were out of the question too, although I could have got a refurbished iPad Mini for £179 from Amazon, but it still seemed a lot of money for a refurbed 7 inch tablet and the iPad version of iOS is too similar to the iPhone I have, despite the compatibility novelty. So what were my options? Windows seemed to be the only operating system to go for, but what brand of tablet should I go for. There were plenty of relatively unknown brands to go for, so I was a bit dubious about those. In the end, I looked for known brands, a lot of which offered Android tablets, which I wanted to avoid, and those which offered Windows were generally £200+, so I looked at refurbs, and decided to buy a refurbished HP Pavilion x2 10-054na.
HP have always been a good brand, I've had HP printers for ages and thought it was a good brand to go for. While refurbished, the 10 inch tablet came with a purpose built detachable keyboard which had a built in track pad, which I'm currently using to write this blog, with the keyboard attached, it effectively turns the tablet into a mini laptop. An Intel Atom quad core processor, 2Gb of RAM, 32Gb storage, Bang & Olufson stereo speakers, a full size USB 2 socket, a USB C socket, HDMI out socket, MicroSD socket for expandable storage and the obligatory audio out socket, so it's really well equipped, all for £129. Pre-installed version of Windows was 8.1, but with the currently free upgrades to Windows 10, I upgraded straight away.
Good thing about Windows is that it's the full Home version of Windows that you get on a normal laptop, so you can use and install all your usual Windows compatible programs and apps, which is great but the down side is that when using the tablet in tablet mode, it can be a bit fiddly when using the touch screen, but it's easy enough when using the track pad. There are apps which are easy to use in tablet mode, but full Windows programs are better used with the keyboard in place and the tablet in laptop mode, but are still usable in tablet mode, using the touch screen rather than the trackpad and using the touch screen keyboard.
You can have the keyboard attached backwards and use it as a stand of tuck it in behind the tablet, but it seems a bit heavy as a tablet with the keyboard attached like this, and in laptop mode, it can be a little uncomfortable on your legs if you're used to using a full sized laptop. But in fairness if that bothers you, spend a bit more money and get a full sized laptop instead. Needless to say, as it's a tablet, it doesn't come with a CD or DVD drive built in either, but again, if that's something that bothers you, get a laptop, although, you could, if you wanted to, buy an external CD/DVD drive, as it can plug into the USB socket on the side of the tablet.
The general use of Windows seems very seamless so far, the use of the solid state memory as opposed to a hard disk might have something to do with that, I currently have a 32Gb microSD card in the expansion socket, but I have a 128Gb card on order, which I have been told (by HP themselves) will work, so plenty of storage once that's in, playback of YouTube videos seems very good too and loading of videos on the onboard storage or from the microSD is good and the sound quality is good.
Overall, my opinions of this tablet is very good. I am very pleased with my new purchase and should get plenty of use out of this tablet.
Here's a few pictures of it:
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