After months of anticipation, HP has finally announced the WebOS-based TouchPad, a full-on tablet complete with a 9.7-inch display, a dual-core processor, slick multitasking capabilities, and video chat. Missing in action at Wednesday's lavish San Francisco press conference, however, was the actual "Palm" brand name.
The 1.5-pound, 13.7mm-thick TouchPad will go on sale this summer, said HP, which didn't reveal any pricing details. Also coming later this year: the HP Veer, a mini version of the old Palm Pre smartphone, as well as a new, bigger brother, the Pre3.
HP's Todd Bradley, EVP of the company's personal computing division, also dangled the possibility of bringing the WebOS platform to printers and even PCs, although he left any and all details to the imagination Wednesday.
Under the hood, the upcoming TouchPad tablet will boast a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm "Snapdragon" processor, along with optional embedded 3G networking, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 16GB or 32GB of storage.
The TouchPad will also pack in a 1.3-megapixel camera for video chat, along with enhanced audio via HP's "Beats Audio" system, a trio of motion sensors (including an accelerometer, compass, and gyroscope), and a microUSB port.
Accessories for the TouchPad will include a larger version of Palm's—er, HP's—"Touchstone" wireless docking station, as well as a carrying case and a wireless keyboard.
Perhaps the most important feature on the TouchPad, though, is WebOS, the mobile platform developed by smartphone pioneer Palm, which itself was swallowed up by HP last April.
Now enhanced for the TouchPad's 9.7-inch, 1024-by-768 display (the same size and resolution as the iPad, by the way), the tabletized version of WebOS adds features such as system notifications that drop down unobtrusively from the top of the screen, a stackable "deck" of multitasking applications that can include items like individual e-mail messages as well as apps, a resizable on-screen QWERTY keypad (nice), and a new "touch-to-share" feature that'll let you quickly share Web pages with nearby WebOS smartphones.
As with earlier versions of WebOS, you can sign in to services like Facebook and Twitter to instantly sync up all your contacts, all thanks to a feature called Synergy. HP execs also pushed other cloud-friendly features on the TouchPad, including the ability to sync documents on Google Docs and Box.net and photos on Facebook, Snapfish, and Photobucket.
HP kicked off its press event Wednesday with the Veer, a bite-sized version of the old Palm Pre with a 2.6-inch touchscreen, a slide-out QWERTY keypad, a 5MP camera, and 8GB of storage. The diminutive, 3.6-ounce handset is powered by a 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor, and while HP didn't make any mention of carrier, the Veer's GSM radio tips the scales toward AT&T and/or T-Mobile. Expect the Veer to arrive in early sprint, HP said.
Also announced Wednesday: the Pre3, a larger, business-oriented handset with a 3.58-inch display, dual cameras (5MP in back, complete with 720p video capture capabilities, plus a VGA lens in front for video chat), and a slide-out QWERTY keypad (larger than the Veer's), all powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8x55 processor. The Pre3 is slated to land this summer—and again, no pricing details yet.
Interesting stuff, but attendees at today's press conference (which I followed remotely from New York) couldn't help but noticed the virtual absence of the Palm brand at the event.
No Palm logos were to be seen at the venue, blogger and reporters tweeted, with all the new products getting "HP" rather than "Palm" branding—hence, the HP TouchPad and the HP Pre3. For now, at least, there's still a Palm website, although the actual Palm name is relegated to the Web page title.
