HP Slate Pics Leak - Unintentional iPad Marketing Ensues

I just saw via Engadget that the connecti.ca blog posted some previously unseen photos of the upcoming HP Slate.   They call it "slow", and it clearly is chunky.

The iPad has fallen out of fashion recently, with members of the tech elite reboxing and returning their iPads. I myself never bought one, in anticipation of ChromeOS, Andriod and Windows tablets coming out later in 2010.  I thought I had successfully overcome the Apple marketing machine with rational thought and patient enthusiasm.

Alas, Apple appears to have a secret weapon...crappy tablets from other vendors.   Perhaps when the tech elite have unboxed and re-boxed these tablets, they will return to the notion of a nicely-built-though-limited utility tablet...the iPad.