back to article HP reveals inaugural Palm webOS tablet

HP has unveiled a trio of new webOS devices, including a pint-sized smartphone known as the Veer, a beefier business phone dubbed the Pre3, and, yes, the first Palm tablet: the HP TouchPad. The devices are designed to work in concert, and to dovetail with myriad "cloud-based" services, consolidating your calendar appointments …

COMMENTS

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  1. Ian Michael Gumby
    Thumb Up

    Cool!

    When will El Reg have a review?

    And will you report the pixel density compared to other offerings like the iPad?

    Thx

  2. Darryl
    Thumb Up

    Nice

    OK, at first glance, all three of those look like nice units. Can't wait to see some prices and some hands-on reviews.

    Good to see HP/Palm putting out some nice looking contenders to keep the competition going strong.

  3. Chris Miller

    TouchPad resolution?

    1024x768 according to www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110209xc.html

    It looks very nice, but I guess software (app) availability may be a killer :(

    1. ~mico
      Flame

      @apps availability

      Flash, actually, says it all. Some 70% of iOS apps are there just to restore the missing functionality.

      Somehow people keep forgetting it when they speak of non-jobsian slabs.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    And it's got (will have) the app of the century....

    Yup. Angry Birds. Suprised you at El Reg didn't mention that.

    GPS*3 A-GPS (3G models only)

    *3 Within wireless coverage area only. Voice-activated, as-you-go, turn-by-turn directions sold separately.

    http://www.palm.com/us/products/pads/touchpad/index.html

    How long before they change the advertising? "Touchstone - Place TouchPad on Touchstone and it charges automatically. There’s nothing to plug in." really? So I don't have to plug the dock into a wall socket or USB port?

    1. thecakeis(not)alie

      ANGRY

      BIRDS.

      Might just be worth buying then...

  5. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Hurray!

    Finally some competition for Apple iPad. A tablet with decent specs and a decent amount of storage built in.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Yeah...

      Did you miss all the other slab announcements recently?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Apotheker lied!

    Didn't Leo Apotheker say just last week that the new devices announced today would ship almost immediately instead of the *very specific* sometime this summer?

    The best part is that all these devices will be just average by then!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    TouchPad vs iPad

    TouchPad specs look very similar to the rumoured spec of iPad 2.

    Apple will have had an 18 month start by the time this gets to market and it may be a question of 'too late'. I suspect the success of this device will depend on two things; price and apps.

    1. Don S.

      Remember when the Pre was supposed to be an iPhone Killer?

      The TouchPad will meet the same fate as the Pre with that kind of lead time. Anyone wanting a pad isn't going to wait, to many options will be beating it to the market.

      1. Monty Burns

        Pre made my 6.5 look great!

        My mate tried a palm pre, his girlfriend used to say him and his phone had "lovers tifs" frequently - It required constant rebooting.

        Frankly, it made my HD2 running 6.5 look amazingly reliable!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @ Don S

        Agreed. Anyone who wants a tablet either has an iPad or is waiting for the competition to catch up... ANY decent competition. If this tab had been scheduled for a March release it might just have been a winner... "sometime this summer" just doesn't cut it when there'll be 10+ top notch tablets on the shelves by then.

  8. Christopher Rogers
    Thumb Up

    HP's turn

    Palm is dead. There wasn't a mention of Palm anywhere. WebOS is HP's assault on the sector and frankly it looks bloody brilliant. Before I became an Android fanboi, WebOS tempted me, but for the hardware being a bit crap. However, HP can more than make up for that. Are they going to go along the Apple route? probably and in doing this they have one hell of a hill to climb (read apps). If they successfully manage to put WebOS on the desktop too however, then the benefits to enterprise will give them a boost no one else can come close to claiming.

    RIM must be watching this one closely.

  9. Richard Plinston

    a pint-sized smartphone

    The last 'pint-sized' mobile phones that I recall were the ones that replaced the 'briefcase-sized' ones in the early 80s.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    Apps, Apps, Apps ... Where are they?

    So wheres the software integration/migration paths? The apps store model? The interface which makes publishing apps to this platform _straightforward_? Looking at the enormous iPad/Android legacy - how easy is it to take an app developed for one of those platforms and move it to this one?

    Well guess what? Everyone in the IT device racket wants lock-in/love-in to their device of the moment ... Why would anyone bother writing particular and specific apps just for this platform, as funky as this seems? Its just another tablet/smartphone combo, after all. Seems a bit of a gamble.

    Lets just wait and see what others have got up their sleeves ....

  11. revdjenk
    Flame

    dalvik virtual app transport?

    Since WebOS and Android are related, maybe using the dalvik vm will offer an instant "app store."

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/08/alien_dalvik/

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      re: Dalvik

      Was just about to post about this. If HP can shoehorn on the Alien Dalvik VM then they are definitely onto a winner... maybe. That summer release date is worrying.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    but still not mention of running old Palm apps?

    I still use my old palm everyday and would love it if webOS had a 'proper' means of running all the old palm applications rather than a half-hearted emulator which is all you can currently buy.

    At the moment, my upgrade path when my 7 year old palm finally dies is probably the ipod touch but I am tempted by the Pre3.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      How about this?

      Stop living in the past and get with the times.

  13. Mark .

    Why the concern about "apps"?

    If apps are important, then why don't people make that argument in favour of Windows too, which surely has more than any other platform? Why even consider a tablet, when a netbook running a full desktop OS like Windows or Linux will give you vast amounts of software?

    The argument I instead hear is "most people just want to browse the Internet or email, so this other OS on a tablet is fine for that". I presume that WebOS has a browser, so what's the problem here?

    Most IOS apps seems to just be wrappers for websites anyway, or basic things like fart/purity ring apps. We're not talking Photoshop and Office here.

    "Apple will have had an 18 month start by the time this gets to market "

    I don't think that's a problem - I suspect the market will continue to grow significantly. Apple were hardly the first ones out with a tablet, after all. They're just taking advantage of a market that's much bigger than a few years ago when you had Nokia and Archos tablets. And it will grow bigger still.

  14. Reg Varney
    FAIL

    Dead in the water

    No price mentioned = high price. So, they're late (probably launching after iPad 2 and Androidpads with 3.0), new (so sod all software, at least in comparison to the others) and high-priced.

    Shame, I was rather looking forward to this as an alternative to Google, but it looks still-born to me

  15. cymbalhead
    FAIL

    Is WebOS still WebOS without gestures?

    The TouchPad has no gesture area. Any of you who have experienced WebOS would know that this is one of the defining aspects of the UI and makes the device a real pleasure to use in comparison with competing mobile OSs.

    HP have decided to remove the gesture area from the TouchPad - this is a terrible mistake. Okay, it may have taken a bit of thought to get it to operate intuitively on a larger device that is designed to rotate etc. but I simply cannot even envisage using WebOS without being able to swipe between apps, swipe forwards and backwards in the browser, meta-tap for menu links and copy/paste etc.

    The worst of this is that the gesture area was the probably the component of the OS most suitable for further development: multi-touch gestures, shortcuts, all sorts of things spring to mind.

    Big big mistake HP and it's certainly put me off even considering buying one.

    I like the veer and the pre3 though.

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