It was bound to happen: the upcoming Palm tablet's specifications have leaked out of HP. And, WebOS and inductive charging aside - and both of these are Palm smartphone standards - it's unexceptional stuff considering what all the other tablet makers are going to offer. The specs were leaked to Pre Central. The CPU is a 1. …

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 10:34 GMT Robert E A Harvey

Dissapointed

Too little, too late as far as I can see.

Difficult to tell from the way the photo is lit, but the "tapered edge" seems to go all the way to the middle, so laying it on the table and prodding might be difficult.

and 8 hours runtime is not a lot, is it?

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:10 GMT Peter 48

well done HP, not.

so basically like the ipad, just with less apps available on an untested OS platform and weaker battery performance. I wonder if it will be able to play flash? This will obviously sell like hotcakes. or not.

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1. Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:20 GMT Malcolm 1
  
  Flash support
  
  Flash is supposedly supported which is one up on the iPad. WebOS is highly regarded for usability and polish so I'll be keen to play with one. (The utterly dense policy of making the Palm Pre exclusive to a single carrier (02) to the extent that you couldn't even buy an sim free one legitimately kept me away from WebOS in the past)
  
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  1. Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:44 GMT Dapprman
    
    WebOS may be very nice
    
    But virtually no one seems to want to write apps for it. Hopefully build quality and real world battery life (compared to peers) will be better than the Pre/Pre+/Pre2 and some better syncing options would also be nice (as opposed to having to buy third party products to perform such tasks)
    
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2. Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:21 GMT jonathanb
  
  Re: well done HP, not
  
  Just like the iPad 1. The iPad 2 will most likely be out by the time that ships, which presumably will have better performance.
  
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  1. Wednesday 26th January 2011 17:07 GMT Peter 48
    
    exactly
    
    precisely, this can't even keep up with the current poorly spec'ed ipad. How is it going to compete with any of the coming devices?
    
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3. Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:21 GMT Code Monkey
  
  If I were in the market for another gadget
  
  I'd buy this rather than join Jobs' circus of controlfreakery
  
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Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:20 GMT Adrian Jones

TVs, monitors, smartphones

All are using widescreens, so HP apes Apple and goes for an old 4:3 screen ratio?

Seems like a backwards step to me.

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:44 GMT uhuznaa

Cameras on the back...

Those aren't useful for shooting photos. They're very useful though when you're doing video telephony and want to show something without turning the thing around (and then not seeing anymore where the camera is actually pointing at).

Right now people are buying heaps of cheap iPod touches just to use them as home video phones with skype. Offering a tablet with no camera on the back is just plain stupid and shows that whoever designed that thing has not the slightest idea what people actually want to do with tablets, really.

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 11:44 GMT Anonymous Coward

Re: aspect ratio...

I don't know about other people, but I use the tablet a lot for viewing PDFs/Word docs, dare I say eBooks... (things that mimic paper) and 4:3 gets you a LOT closer to an A4 or Letter paper experience than 16:9.

Sure I sometimes watch a Film if I'm on a flight or whatever, but its hardly my main movie viewing screen...

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 13:14 GMT Anonymous Coward

screen ratios

I hate widescreen laptops, and I Say that as I type on one.

I used to have a 4:3 screen with 1600x1050 resolutipon, now I'm on 1600x800, and the big diff is that the office toolbar takes up the top third of the screen, not the quarter. What makes a good format for cinema at home isn't ideal for coding or working on text documents, and the fact that apps like office have UIs that suck on widescreens makes things worse

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 14:56 GMT Dave 126

Aspect Ratio

I'm very glad to be typing this on a 16:10 Dell laptop, I personally don't find 16:9 nice to work on.

Though it could be said that it is a matter of preference, it seems that panel manufacturers would rather make 16:9 displays, saving money by sharing production lines with televisions. This has reduced the choice of laptop for those of us who use them for more than watching movies.

Well done to Apple for sticking with what they want, and using their market size for good. On this occasion. (even if you use your 16:10 Mac primarily for editing 16:9 video, the extra vertical space is ideal for a time-line or tool palette).

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 14:59 GMT uhuznaa

Widescreen on tablets

They have their own problems. In landscape orientation they offer just a slit to squint through and in portrait orientation they're easily too narrow. The good old 4:3 is actually perfect for tablets (and smartphones).

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 17:06 GMT David Paul Morgan

I want this to succeed

... but I too think it's too little too late. A bit of competition will always help.

Although, if it's for browsing and reading, then almost any network connected device will do.

However, I do agree that A4 (1.4:1) or 4:3 ( 1.33:1) is a better tablet ratio.

Your movie can be at the top of the device, allowing space for the control bar, or another widget at the bottom.

I like taking 16:9 pictures using my Desire, but portrait 9:16 look a bit silly, unless its for the Eiffel tower or the El Reg pillar box!

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Thursday 27th January 2011 10:36 GMT Gil Grissum

Too little, too late

The iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, Blackberry Playbook, and other more relevant tablets will be out long before this also ran. Most folks just don't care about Web OS any more. And the fact that HP isn't leaking any smartphone info leads one to believe that there is none in the pipeline, meaning that the last couple of WebOS fanboys left on Palm Pre variants, are likely to bounce to Android sooner rather than later.

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