HP is riding the iPad hype by putting out information on their answer to the iPad called HP Slate.

Not sure HP gains much by putting this out at this time. I think that HP would gain more by waiting til the iPad hype noise fads. Anyway HP is in the consumer business and needs to really build a kick ass product to meet Apple. They have a couple of opportunities in having a camera and other features that Apple didn’t get into the iPad. If HP gets in this early they can easily be a player in this new “consumer tablet” category I call “Casual Consumption”.

Here is the post by HP’s Phil McKinney Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Hewlett-Packard’s Personal Systems Group. Below Phil writes about how “Slate Device Delivers a Holistic Mobile Experience”.

Up to now, we’ve given you only tiny glimpses of the HP slate device coming out later this year. You saw it first in a video we released during CES and most recently in videos demoing its Web experience and Adobe Flash and Air support. We’ve also blogged about the evolution of the slate category and our history in the space.

So far, almost everything we’ve shared showcases how you’ll consume media with the device. And by media we mean all types of digital content, whether it’s a story from a major news outlet or videos and photos you’ve shot. But we also believe that media consumption is only half of the ideal mobile experience.

Think about the last time you chatted with friends over Skype on your notebook. Or uploaded a picture from your mobile phone to Facebook or Flickr. How about the last time you viewed images or video from an SD card or a USB device. We know that you expect to be able to capture and share digital content on your mobile devices. And the HP slate device excels there.

Take a look at our newest video. As you’ll see, we’re putting a lot of thought into the design to make sure we deliver an optimal mobile experience.