You see, the HP ElitePad 1000 G2 has more in common with the first generation iPad beyond that slick metal slightly bevelled design which is, as we’ve mentioned already, very similar.
It also sports a port at the bottom that is very proprietary and yet does its best impersonation of the original Apple iPod dock.
Unfortunately, it is not that old school connection which was replaced by Apple a few years back.
Rather, it merely looks like it and serves HP as a way of connecting dock accessories or charging the tablet.
If you’ve ever read any of our phone or tablet reviews, you’ll know that we’re not huge fans of proprietary connections, and HP’s not-quite-iPod-dock connector ranks pretty highly as it means you won’t be able to ever forget the power charger and find one easily, unless you work colleagues have the exact same device.
It also means you’re out of luck for expanding the ports of the ElitePad 1000 G2, as there’s no microUSB or regular USB or HDMI or anything really on the tablet itself.
HP has included a converter to take you from the proprietary dock port to a USB port in the box, but you’ll need to remember to bring this with you, otherwise — yes — you’re out of luck.
There’s also no option for a keyboard, or not one that we’ve seen, anyway.
There is a dock that you can get, an optional accessory that will act as a port replicator and turn that proprietary port into something a little more useful, and with it you can keep a keyboard plugged in, but it’s not the same as the made-for-purpose keyboard cases we see for the numerous other tablets out there, including one HP’s ElitePad 1000 G2 competes directly with.
That means you’ll be typing with the onscreen keyboard only, and while Microsoft’s update to Windows 8.1 has made this a lot better than under Windows 8 regular, the combination of the touchscreen HP is using and the Intel Atom processor means it won’t be as fast as your fingers if you are, in fact, supersonic on a physical keyboard.
If you are like this — you speedy typer, you — expect to see numerous errors as letters and words crash together. We sure did, and put this review through a fair amount of editing to make sure there wasn’t an abundance of made-up smushed together words for your perusal.
Cost is one final dilemma, because at $999, HP’s ElitePad G2 1000 is not a cheap tablet, not by a long shot.
To its credit, HP has provided 4G access, and it’s in a tablet that looks good, feels excellent, and doesn’t come off as thick to the fingers, which we’re sure some professional-types out there will appreciate, but this is a little over a grand for an Atom-based tablet with no accessories boxed in and 64GB of total storage, but under 20GB available to you.
That’s a price that goes beyond Apple’s own iPad benchmark, and while the two can’t technically be compared, we’re sure you’ll be thinking about it when taking that wallet out.
We know we would.
Conclusion
HP’s take on the business tablet is a pretty one, and we’re reminded of a slicker take of Apple’s first generation iPad, albeit with an operating system that will let you get a lot more done if you’re in the mood for more than just content consumption.
We also like the screen and the construction, and if you’re after Windows 8 with 4G, you should definitely look this way, but just beware that the price HP charges here isn’t terribly easy on the wallet, fetching $200 more than Lenovo’s own effort which even manages to outdo HP in some ways.
