HP unveiled 2 new smartphones and 1 new tablet today at their WebOS event. Multitasking was certainly on the menu today because as the strong point of the Palm predecessor, HP plans to make that a key selling point for their future devices. Along with the announcement of smartphones HP Veer and the Pre 3, HP also announced its widely anticipated new tablet, the HP TouchPad and a PC version of WebOS being in development.
Palm Pre 3
The Pre 3 towers over its predecessor with a larger 3.6″ screen and an 800 x 480 pi resolution. It also boasts a faster 1.4-GHz Snapdragon CPU, has double the display resolution of the Pre 2, a 1.4 GHz processor, a 5 megapixel rear camera and forward-facing camera for video conferencing, and the phone does HD video recording. The Palm Pre 3 is scheduled for release this summer.
Veer
Much like how the Palm Pixi was a cutified version of the Palm Pre, the Veer is “something that is powerful yet elegantly small.” It has a 2.6-inch touch screen, a 320-by-400 display, and it is about the size of a credit card. HP also managed to somehow fir a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard in the Veer. The phone also has full web access thanks to its built-in Flash player. The Veer features a 5-megapixel camera, USB cord, audio jack, HSPA+, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and 8GB of storage. It runs a Qualcomm 7230 processor, which is an 800-MHz Cortex-A8 Snapdragon, and will be available in early spring.
HP Touchpad
Overlooking the fairly obscure name (just google touchpad and you’ll see what we mean), HP’s TouchPad seems to answer the biggest question on everyone’s mind: Is this a viable iPad competitor? The TouchPad is a 1.6 pound, 9.7 inch display tablet with stereo speakers, as well as Flash support and a vertical stand and keyboard. Lest we forget multitasking, this monster can run multiple applications in the background and switch from one to another simultaneously. “This is true multitasking,” said Sachin Kansal, a webOS director. “Multitasking was not an afterthought. It was a key design principle from Day One. And it shows.”
HP Innovations
HP is taking huge strides to show that it’s a company that can stand on its own, and having bought Palm, they are looking to make some huge technological advances. To date, HP is the world’s largest PC maker and they are going to combine that with their other forte: printers. HP will be rolling out a new touch-friendly system that ties in its family of printers to all HP products, including its pc’s, laptops, smartphones, and tablets.
The technology giant also announced its very own proprietary operating system at their meeting, which means, yes, a big screw you! to the guys over at M$oft. “HP is delivering on the enormous promise of webOS,” said Steven McArthur, an HP executive responsible for applications and services. “These fantastic new products are just the start for HP’s plan to build the largest install base of connected users in the world.”
HP also wants to move toward letting customers move whatever they want to do seamlessly among HP devices using HP services. That would tie them to HP’s platforms. A cornerstone for the strategy is an HP service called Synergy, which syncs data between devices and cloud storage. Put Synergy on more devices and then all your information is potentially available on any of them.
What say you; think HP has latched onto a golden nugget here?
