Hasta La Gadget!

College students eagerly awaiting India’s ambitious $35 tablet are going to have to put their dreams on hold — there’s been a delay. Earlier this week, the Times of India reported that the Indian government dropped HCL Technologies, the company responsible for manufacturing the great democratic tablet, for failing to follow through on the 600 million rupee (or $13,198,416) guarantee — apparently a disagreement over production costs is to blame. Last summer, the country’s Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal, made a number of appearances toting a mockup of the Android-based tablet, and promising a launch date of January 15th. Officials say the project is still on track and should be ready this summer. However, while the government seeks a replacement for HCL, skeptics continue to sound warnings that parts alone will cost more than $35. We’d like to chalk this up to haters hating, but we can’t seem to forget what became of the $10 laptop.

India’s $35 tablet delay dashes hopes, destroys dreams originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading MSI shows off tablet concept with an integrated projector

MSI shows off tablet concept with an integrated projector originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Given current trends, it’s reasonable to believe that the foremost question regarding an HTC tablet is no longer if the Taiwanese company will produce one, but when. So, who could we possibly turn to for help but those ever-loquacious upstream component manufacturers that DigiTimes knows and loves so well? Their latest info points to an Android tablet dubbed the Flyer arriving in the US in March (just early enough to potentially beat the Xoom and PlayBook to market), which will roll out across the world in the second quarter of 2011 and be joined by two more slate devices (Scribe?) in June. Further details are a little murky, including the dubious suggestion that the Flyer will come with Android 2.3 on board and be upgradeable to Honeycomb (3.0), but we’re inclined to consider the overall roadmap credible. In spite of its Thunderbolt launch at CES, HTC was relatively quiet in the big January event, so we suspect it’ll bring the big(ger than a smartphone) guns to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month.

HTC Flyer tablet tipped for US landing in March, to be followed by two more slates in June originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like buttonless is in this season.

No, not on this spring’s selection of evening wear. We’re talking about renderings of HP’s rumored webOS-powered tablet published this week on Engadget. It’s a sleek, all-black rendition of what we may be seeing from HP soon, and like the soon to be debuted Motorola Xoom, the tablet has got a button-free face.

While the pictures, leaked by an anonymous Engadget source, aren’t the most detailed, there are a few new things we can glean from taking a look. The finish on the back of the all-black tablet is slick-looking, differentiated from the rubberized backing you might find on, say, the new Galaxy Tab 4G. There’s a mini USB port at the bottom of the tablet along with front-facing camera, both found in many of this year’s forthcoming tablets. Two speakers appear to be on the left side and one on the right, a configuration which adapts to stereo listening in both portrait and landscape orientations. And of course, Palm’s webOS is running on the mystery tablet’s screen.

While HP is rumored to have both a 7-inch and 9-inch tablet in the works — codenames “Opal” and “Topaz,” respectively — the pictures we saw were of Topaz. Engadget has posted additional details on the HP tablets, reporting that they will be bundled with a cloud-based storage service, HP’s “Beats” audio processing, and a “tap to share” feature for transferring URLs, documents and music between the tablet and a phone simply by tapping them together.

When are we going to see these bad boys? An exact date remains to be seen, although the leaked Palm marketing materials suggest both a Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G version of the 7-inch Opal to ship in North America, Europe and China in September of this year. The sheet also lists a 4G Verizon-carried Opal to ship in September, and a 4G AT&T-carried version to come in July of 2012.

HP did not comment on the rumors.

Separate reports have emerged suggesting we could see the 9-inch tablet even sooner. HP will begin shipping Topaz units as early as March, according to sources who told DigiTimes. HP expects to ship somewhere between 45 to 48 million notebooks in 2011, with the webOS-operated tablets being the lion’s share of those numbers.

Before HP acquired Palm last April for $1.2 billion, Palm had tried to reinvigorate its ailing mobile market with webOS-based smartphones like the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi. Since Palm’s acquisition, HP has been trying to move the much-lauded webOS over to HP products like the ill-fated HP Slate.

A September release for HP’s Opal would put HP behind the forthcoming tablet debuts from Motorola, Lenovo and a potential iPad 2 release. But a staggered approach with Topaz’s March shipping date could keep HP up to speed with its competitors, and keep us puzzled with yet another tablet to choose from in the spring.

Photo: webOS interface/HP

See Also:

• HP Buys Palm for $1.2 Billion
• Palm webOS Headed to HP Tablet, Printer
• HP Slate Could Get a Makeover With Palm’s WebOS
• HP Slate Details Leaked: $550 Netbook, Minus Keyboard

Now that the kitty’s out of the gemstone bag, we’re slowly starting to connect the dots that obscure the details of Palm’s soon to be announced “Topaz” and “Opal” tablets. First up is information from one of our original trusted sources who claims that the Opal will measure 180 x 144 x 13mm (making it a bit shorter and wider than the 190.1 x 120.5 x 12-mm Galaxy Tab) and feature a 1,024 x 768 pixel TFT LCD display. We’re told that the bigger Topaz tablet will ship about three months before Opal and measures in at 241 x 190 x 13mm (making it nearly identical to the 242.8 x 189.7 x 13.4-mm iPad) with a pixel resolution that could be the same as the Opal (our source wasn’t 100 percent on this). We’re also hearing that the “premium audio” we saw on that leaked marketing slide will indeed be powered by HP’s Beats audio processing, and that the tablets will be provided with “tens of gigabytes” of cloud storage — so much that it dwarfs the local storage on the devices. Good, because you’re going to need it from the looks of some additional information we just received. Click through for the detail.

Continue reading HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage, Beats audio and Tap-to-Share smartphone integration

HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage, Beats audio and Tap-to-Share smartphone integration originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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