Hasta La Gadget!

HP and Palm aren’t being shy about hyping up next week’s big webOS event, and they’re following up on that nod to our leak and CEO Leo Apotheker’s comments with this “Think Beyond” teaser video. As is undoubtedly intended, we can’t make much of the product from these brief glimpses of tapered curves, elegant switchgear, and what appears to be a charging connector — but we’d like to think it’s a tablet, because we are fundamentally very hopeful people. In any case, we’ll see what Palm has in store for us next week — and whether it can live up to all this buildup.

Update: We were just sent a longer version of the video, which we’ve swapped in above — it shows a rear-facing camera and what’s either a microphone or speaker grille. And is it just us, or is this thing looking pretty chubtastic or what? Original Palm video after the break. [Thanks, Raphael]

Continue reading Palm ‘Think Beyond’ teaser shows off glimpses of… something (updated with longer video)

Palm ‘Think Beyond’ teaser shows off glimpses of… something (updated with longer video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We can’t conclusively link this to the upcoming Palm tablets, but HP just filed for a trademark on “HP Touchpad” across a wide variety of products and services ranging from memory cards to — dun dun dun — “tablet computers.” We’re liking it as a tablet name, though — we’ve been getting the sense that the Palm name is on the way out, and “HP Touchpad” jibes nicely with the conspicuous lack of Palm branding on the invite for HP’s February 9th webOS event. What’s more, HP’s already invested heavily in branding its laptop trackpads with the ClickPad name, so this seems like something else entirely. We’ve definitely come across headfake trademark registrations in the past, so we’ll see what’s going on here — and whether this slow trickle of leaks ever turns into a flood.

HP files for ‘HP Touchpad’ trademark — a possible name for the webOS tablet? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The news we were all hoping for finally hit this week: HP is getting ready to show off its new webOS-based tablet.

Sadly for those of us in Las Vegas, it’s not going to happen at the Consumer Electronics Show here. Instead, HP’s planning an “exciting webOS announcement” for February 9 in San Francisco.

The invitations (shown above) went out today, and while they don’t mention a tablet, it’s a good bet that a webOS-based slate will be on the agenda — plus, perhaps, HP-branded successors to Palm’s tepidly successful webOS-based smartphones, the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi.

Hewlett-Packard acquired Palm in 2010 for about $1.2 billion, a purchase that more or less saved Palm from yet another ignominious decline into obscurity, but left many observers wondering what HP was thinking.

The Palm and Pre (and their successors, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus) were ambitious attempts to compete with Android phones and the iPhone, and the phones offer striking industrial design, elegant user interfaces, clever multitasking and a web-based development environment.

But the phones haven’t proven popular with consumers, thanks in part to poor battery life and the relative lack of webOS applications.

HP’s intentions became clearer in July, 2010, when HP CTO Phil McKinney started promising a webOS-based tablet and webOS-based printer to come in “early 2011.” For such devices, a lightweight, web-based mobile operating system makes a lot of sense, and competitors have less of a head start than in the smartphone market.

Palm has never shied away from odd, short names for its devices — take the Zire, for instance — so when you hear that Palm’s new owner has filed for trademarks on “Gyst,” “Myte,” and “Veer” in the category that covers smartphones, it doesn’t take a very big leap of logic to believe that they’re intended for future Palm models. HP’s filings were all made on the 10th of this month, so they’re very fresh; of course, companies of all types regularly file trademarks that they don’t use either to throw off the Engadgets of the world or just in case they end up needing it down the road, so we wouldn’t take these to mean there’ll definitely be Veers on your carrier’s shelf in 2011. Our vote? We think Myte’s a great name for a tiny phone and we’ve heard rumors that they’ll be releasing a small model — possibly a Pixi successor — in the next few months, so that lines up rather nicely.

Hewlett Packard files trademarks for Gyst, Myte, and Veer: new Palm models? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP‘s unceremoniously added the G62x to its previously released G62m and G62t models. The 15.6-incher boasts an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU unlike the Core i3s that the G62m and G62t models pack. Other than that, all three are identical, with 16:9 aspect ratio panels, WiFi, an HDMI reader, three USB 2.0 ports, and a 6-cell battery. The G62x is the lowest end, budget-minded laptop of the group, and has a starting price of $430. It’s available now over at HP.

HP debuts Core 2 Duo G62x laptop for $430 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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