HP 7 Plus has been available in Europe for some time now
Hewlett-Packard entered the media tablet race in mid-2011, at a time when almost every upcoming tablet was labeled a potential iPad killer. Both the $500 webOS-based TouchPad and the $1.2 billion Palm acquisition that made it possible in the first place turned out to be patent disasters. If the company has learned anything from the whole fiasco, it’s perhaps the fact that people really love a good $99 tablet.

Late last year, the company launched a quartet of affordable Android tablets priced between $150 and $300. Now, the company has gone one better with the launch of a $99 tablet called the HP 7 Plus.

The HP 7 Plus packs a 7-inch IPS display (1,024 x 600), Allwinner A31 quad-core 1Ghz processor, 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM, 8 GB (eMMC) internal storage, 802.11b/g/n, and a 2,800mAh lithium-polymer battery (with up to 330 minutes battery life). The ports on this Jellybean-running 7-incher include one micro USB 2.0, a micro SD (expandable up to 32 GB), an integrated microphone and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The tablet is currently listed as being “out of stock” over at HP’s online store.