It's when you pick up the Zeen and look closer that the differences appear. Since it's made to be sold with a printer, it largely lacks the design aesthetics you might expect from a stand-alone tablet. It's neither sleek nor sexy; rather, the Zeen has a bulky protrusion on its back, in part to accommodate the ports and slots (a printer docking port, mini-USB, an SD Card slot that's supposed to support SDHC but didn't recognize my SDHC card). And it weighs 1.5 pounds, the same as the 9.7-inch , even though it has only a 7-inch screen.

When I powered up the Zeen, its position as an outlier in the tablet world became even more obvious.

For starters, although you can hold the unit in portrait mode (and the screen will reorient as needed), it's designed to be used in landscape mode. The home, back, and menu buttons all run along the top right, while at bottom sits the docking port for the printer. The tablet is necessary to use the printer--without it, you won't get very far.

Surprisingly, though, the printer app does not dominate the screen, nor is it the biggest default widget on the home screen--two points that run counter to HP's attempts to position the Zeen as being specific to the printer. When activated, the Printer app provides the usual touchscreen controls for copying, scanning, or fax (via eFax). But those options are buried beneath the Printer icon, which is one of six small icons running along the bottom of the screen. The others include Internet, Facebook, HP Gallery, Yahoo Daily Digest, and Yahoo Mail. No sign of Google Mail or , though, omissions that fit this device's general lack of Google services.

Expand the menu by pressing the up arrow above the icon ticker, and you'll see other apps that come preinstalled. Suddenly, the appearance is much more reminiscent of stock Android, with version 2.1 of the OS--replete with its indistinct icons--on board. HP says that it will push an update to Android 2.2 in "early 2011" (and that newer units shipping after then will come with 2.2 preinstalled). The home-screen skin appears to be slightly different from stock Android, with a selection of widgets available to customize the three home screens. The opening home screen has a module for Barnes & Noble, a weather module, and four apps that are primed for printing--sort of. All four--Disney, Yahoo, DreamWorks, and MSNBC--require an Internet connection just to get started.