The Slate 2 tablet has an 8.9-inch capacitive touch display and is an update to the company's first tablet, the Slate 500, . Targeted at businesses, the Slate 2 includes faster hardware including Intel's Atom Z670 processor.

HP was able to drop the tablet's starting price to US$699 by making a configuration available with just 32GB storage. That version also includes Wi-Fi and Windows 7 Home Premium. The Slate 2 will become available worldwide in November.

This is the first tablet announced by HP after the company said it would keep its Personal Systems Group, which deals in smartphones, tablets and PCs. HP was offering the Slate 500 tablet when it said it would sell or spin off PSG, and subsequently killed the TouchPad tablets and Palm smartphones with WebOS.

The future of HP's tablets and PCs now revolve around Windows 8, and the company will release a Windows 8 tablet in the future. Slate 2 is based on Windows 7, but HP officials did not say whether an upgrade path would be offered to Windows 8.

As a business tablet, the Slate 2 easily integrates in Windows environments, said Kyle Thornton, category manager for emerging products at HP. Much like PCs, the tablet can run custom applications written for x86 processors and the Windows OS.