The HP ElitePad 1000 G2 ($789) is a Windows tablet with business on its mind. With several work-friendly features and a wide array of accessories that let you adjust to the demands of your employees and services, the ElitePad 1000 G2 is a flexible answer to the question of "Which tablet should I get?" While that's great news for a business that needs to deploy dozens of systems, it means that SMBs buying one or two units at a time may feel stuck having to buy a lot of extras for full functionality. As a result, it doesn't replace our top pick for business tablets, the Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139)($295.22 at Amazon) as Editors' Choice, but it still might be a good fit for your organization.
Design
The ElitePad 1000 G2 is small enough to pick up and use while on the go, but offers full Windows support and a range of business-friendly features. The slim 1.5-pound tablet has a professional look with a milled aluminum chassis that's built to meet MIL-STD 810G requirements. A layer of scratch- and crack-resistant Gorilla Glass 3 covers the 10.1-inch display, and the 1,920-by-1,200-resolution touch screen is directly bonded to the glass for better picture clarity and touch accuracy. The panel is brighter than on past iterations, for better outdoor visibility. The tablet is also made for serviceability, with a magnetic latching system that allows removing the display for easy internal access.
The ElitePad 1000 G2 may be an update to the HP ElitePad 900($379.99 at Amazon), but you can still use it with all of the accessories offered for the previous model, like the SmartJacket system, which used different accessory sleeves to add functionality, be it ports, secondary batteries, keyboards, or barcode scanners. This backwards compatibility works because the ElitePad 1000 G2 still keeps the same basic external design, even though it's all new on the inside, with a revamped selection of processor, storage, and display. The dimensions are the same 0.36 by 10.25 by 7 inches (HWD), with the 16:10 aspect ratio of the display and the location of the docking port and other buttons unchanged.
Like the Microsoft Surface Pro 3($889.00 at Amazon), the ElitePad 1000 G2 has an optional keyboard accessory, but is made for use with Microsoft's onscreen keyboard. An optional stylus ($59.99) lets you take notes directly on the touch screen, but the tablet can also be outfitted with an accessory sleeve ($199) that adds a keyboard for laptop-style productivity. It's not bundled with the tablet the way the docking keyboard is on the Editors' Choice Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139), and it's not as slim as the optional TypeCover for the Microsoft Surface Pro 3, but it will do the job.
Similar Products
Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139)
HP ElitePad 900
Microsoft Surface Pro 4
Features
On its own, the tablet is almost devoid of the usual ports and features, with a single docking port on the bottom edge of the chassis and a covered microSD card slot on the back of the device. On the top is a headset jack, along with a power button and rotation lock switch. The tablet does offer Bluetooth connectivity for wireless peripherals, and NFC for easy pairing, along with dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi for network connectivity. There is also a similar configuration that adds LTE mobile broadband for an extra $120 (not including service fees).
If you need USB ports or other physical connectors, you'll need to look to the selection of SmartJacket accessories, which range in price between $49 and $459 and include a range of features, from adding a simple protective layer to the chassis and display to providing USB ports, adding a laptop-style keyboard, a second expansion battery, or more specialized features, like a SmartCard reader and fingerprint scanner. You can also use one of several adapter dongles that connect to the docking port—the available adapters include USB 3.0 ($29), SD card reader ($39), HDMI/VGA ($49), Ethernet ($39), and Serial Port ($39). While it certainly could be argued that the system's paucity of built-in features is a negative and encourage upselling the accessories along with the tablet, they do have the benefit of letting you be selective about what features you do and do not want on your business tablet. For an individual unit, it's a problem, but for a fleet of systems that may be deployed in all sorts of distinct roles in a company, it's something of a boon to be able to customize functionality without having to custom-configure several full systems.
As a business system, the ElitePad 100 G2 is also outfitted with an array of security features, like Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2, BIOS protection, Drive Access Manager, and several secure management tools, like HP Trust Circles (for seamless encryption), HP Sure Start (automatic BIOS restoration after BIOS attack or corruption), and HP Client Security (which includes credential management and a password manager).
Other software included on the tablet's 64GB solid-state drive are a 30-day trial of Microsoft Office, 50GB of Box cloud storage (a free upgrade from the usual 10GB of a free account, with no expiration), PDF Complete Corporate Edition, and HP-branded offerings like HP ePrint (a wireless printing app) and HP PageLift, which lets you grab digitized versions of physical documents using the tablet's built-in 8-megapixel camera. HP covers the ElitePad 1000 G2 with a one-year warranty on parts and labor, including the battery.
Performance
The ElitePad 1000 G2 is a sizable step up from the HP ElitePad 900, thanks to an Intel Atom Z3795 processor. Part of Intel's Bay Trail line, the new CPU is a significant improvement over the previous iteration's processor, with 64-bit support, improved performance and graphics processing, but without giving up much in the way of energy efficiency. The new system also comes with 4GB of RAM, up from the previous 2GB. Where the previous model couldn't complete Photoshop CS6 due to hardware limitations, the ElitePad 1000 G2 cranked through the full tests in 13 minutes 20 seconds.
While the performance is improved, it's still not on par with the Intel Core processors used in the more expensive laptop replacements, like the Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139) or the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. Both are considerably more expensive, but offer much better processing capability, completing the same Photoshop test in 6:19 and 4:48, respectively. This performance gap can able be seen in PCMark 8 Work Conventional, our general productivity test. The ElitePad 1000 G2 scored a respectable 1,557 points, but the more powerful Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139) scored 2,407 points, and the Microsoft Surface 3 Pro did even better with 2,704 points.
The battery life on the tablet is fairly good, lasting 7 hours 35 minutes on our battery rundown test. The HP ElitePad 900 lasted a bit longer (8:23), while the Microsoft Surface 3 Pro (8:55) had the longest-lasting solo battery among the devices compared. The longest-living device, however, was the Dell Venue 11 Pro, which only lasted 6:29 as a tablet alone, but extended this to 9:18, thanks to a secondary battery in the docking keyboard.
Conclusion
If you simply want a usable version of Windows for Internet connectivity, data input and working with Word or Excel, the HP ElitePad 1000 G2 is a solid choice, but for more demanding uses, like editing media, rendering complex visuals, or crunching large data sets, you'll want something more powerful. The Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139) remains our Editors' Choice for business tablets, thanks to its more potent processor and secondary battery, but the HP ElitePad 1000 G2 is still worth considering, due to its many accessory options and solid, all-around performance.
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