Hasta La Gadget!

If the damp blanket of leaves warming the ground is any indicator, then we’d say that fall has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. That means Google’s Chrome OS is due. What better time for DigiTimes to cite sources from “component players” claiming that the first smartbooks featuring Google’s other operating system will launch later this month. According to the Taiwanese rumor rag, Google will follow its Nexus One strategy and be first from the gate with the launch of a self-branded Chrome OS notebook manufactured by Inventec — the ARM-based machine will not be sold through normal retail channels and is expectated to ship a very modest 60,000 to 70,000 units. Acer and HP are then rumored to be launching Quanta-manufactured Chrome OS gear as early as December while ASUS waits to gauge market reaction. Of course, if all of this is true then we should be getting a Google event press invite right about, well, now.

Google-branded Chrome OS smartbook launching this month? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 02:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been toying with a Palm Pre 2 for a few weeks now, but given that it’s not “final hardware,” we can’t exactly make any firm judgments on the unit itself. Tim Pettitt, product manager for HP Palm, can. In speaking with MarkGuim.tv (and slyly handling a Verizon Pre 2), he not only confirmed that the company was relying on a layer of the famed Gorilla Glass to keep the front as scratch-resistant as possible, but also that the five megapixel camera is capable of capturing a shot every second. More importantly, however, he made clear that it wouldn’t be just the developers nabbing an unlocked GSM Pre 2. According to Tim, that very handset will be “available direct from HP.com,” though he stopped short of saying whether it would support T-Mobile’s AWS 3G band. For AT&T loyalists, however, we’re guessing this may be the best way to nab webOS on the network that’s still rethinking possible.

[Thanks, Fuu]

Continue reading Unlocked GSM Palm Pre 2 to be ‘available direct from HP,’ Gorilla Glass on the front

Unlocked GSM Palm Pre 2 to be ‘available direct from HP,’ Gorilla Glass on the front originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We don’t know how this one slipped past us, but somewhere in the past few weeks (on October 19th as far as we can tell), HP and Palm‘s logos got together to form what you see to the left: the HP Palm logo. The new, hybrid logo is on both Palm’s website and Facebook page, so this should quell any fears that the world might lose Palm’s branding all together. We don’t know what you think of the new logo — personally, we were a little partial to our own mock up.

HP Palm quietly debuts new HP Palm logo originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Underwhelmed by the feeling of sameness with the Pre 2? Well, you may or may not be in luck; Chinese-based CENS.com is reporting that manufacturers Foxconn and Compal now have contracts to manufacturer up to six new Palm devices for 2011. That boils down to one for Compal, and either four or five for Foxconn. We’d venture a guess that PalmPad’s at least one of those, seeing as it’s due early next year, but what about the others? Whatever (stackable) cards HP / Palm have in hand aren’t exactly being laid out, and while we can’t confirm this report ourselves, rest assured, we’re hoping really hard that there’ll be more webOS options with non-pebble form factors.

HP contracts 5 or 6 new Palm devices for 2011? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Waiting for that HP webOS to finally take on Apple’s iPad? Looks like you’ll have to keep waiting, for the foreseeable future. HP did, in fact, launch a tablet today–the Slate 500–but in spite of the company’s purchase of Palm and the recent release of webOS 2 and the Palm Pre 2, that ultra dynamic operating system is nowhere to be seen on the thing.

Nope, the HP Slate 500 is a Windows 7 machine–not only that, it’s Windows 7 Professional. Yep–HP is pushing this thing as a business tablet. The company looks to be tackling professionals in fields like education, insurance, and real estate–words that don’t really scream, you know, “sexy” the way an iPad does.

The screen is 8.9 inches, and the device weighs 1.5 pound. Inside you’ll find a 1.86GHz Intel Atom Z540, a 64GB hard drive, and 2GB of RAM–over in its hands-on, PCMag describes the thing a “zippy.” There’s also a built-in camera and an SD card slot.

There’s no 3G on the thing, but it does feature 802.11b/g/n. The Slate 500 runs $799 and is available. As for the webOS tablet? That’s still coming–at some point next year.