A new contender has entered the tablet category. On Wednesday, after much buildup, Hewlett-Packard unveiled its webOS-based TouchPad.
The event, attended by about 400 people, was in San Francisco. In addition to the tablet, which features a 9.7-inch, 1024×768 display, HP unveiled a credit-card-sized smartphone named Veer and a business-oriented smartphone, the Pre3.
‘Connected Mobility’
The TouchPad features support for Adobe’s Flash technology, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, instant-on, a 1.2-GHz Snapdragon processor, 16GB or 32GB of internal memory, and a weight of 1.5 pounds.
The Veer, with a 2.6-inch touchscreen, is being positioned as an alternative to what HP described as “jumbo” smartphones. It has HSPA+, 802.11 b/g Wi-FI, Bluetooth 2.1, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and an 800-MHz Snapdragon processor. It can act as a Wi-Fi hot spot for other devices.
HP said messaging on the Veer “is more than just text.” Text messages, picture messages, and IM conversations with one person are combined into a single view.
The Pre3 is the most recent incarnation of the first device Palm released for its webOS in 2009. It has twice the screen resolution as the original, HD video recording, a camera on the front, and a 1.4-GHz Qualcomm processor. One version of the Pre3 has HSPA+ connectivity, while another is a EVDO Rev A World phone.
HP billed the event as introducing “a unique experience for customers around connected mobility” that will offer “a unified experience for the first time across a variety of devices.”
Jon Rubinstein, the ex-Apple executive who is senior vice president and general manager of the Palm global business unit at HP, said the goal is to link “a wide family of HP products.”
Just Type
Touching a webOS phone to the TouchPad, for instance, can share web URLs, and webOS automatically groups related items, such as an e-mail and an associated web…