Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve sensed that something‘s been up with the HP Slate for a while now, and it looks like we’ve finally gotten the first solid confirmation that the Windows 7 tablet as unveiled by Steve Ballmer at CES in January won’t hit the consumer market as planned — speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, HP Personal Systems Group VP Todd Bradley just said that the Slate will be “more customer-specific than broadly deployed,” and that it would launch the Microsoft-based tablet “for the enterprise” in the fall. That fits right in with HP telling us the other day that it was in “customer evaluations” as it prepared for the “next steps,” and based on followup comments from Bradley and Palm head Jon Rubinstein, it certainly sounded like the company will focus Windows tablets at the enterprise and develop a variety of webOS devices for the consumer market. Of course, there’s no official announcement yet, so we’ll see what happens — the only thing that we can confidently say is that the HP Slate has definitely succeeded the iPad as the tech industry’s favorite vaporware tablet.

HP Slate no longer a consumer product, will arrive for enterprise this fall originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ha, and you thought Dell’s Streak was pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable to hold to one’s ear. In a bid to make even the xpPhone look diminutive, Olive Telecom has just announced India’s first 3.5G Android (2.1 for now) tablet in the Olive Pad VT100. This 7-inch slate is said to boast an 800 x 480 resolution on a capacitive touchpanel, not to mention Bluetooth, WiFi, an SD card slot, 512MB of internal memory (plus 512MB ROM), a 3.5mm audio jack, 3 megapixel camera, mini USB socket and a 3,240mAh battery. There’s also a mysterious front facing camera for video calls, and sure enough, this thing actually supports voice, which may very well make it the largest smartphone to launch in 2010. If all goes well, it’ll seep out in India next month, with a price of around Rs.20000 to Rs.25000, or $425 to $530 in terms of Greenbacks. We wouldn’t get our hopes up for an immediate launch in North America, but word on the street has it that Russia and Europe could see this bad boy in the not-too-distant future.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Olive Pad VT100 brings a voice-capable, 7-inch Android tablet to India’s airwaves

Olive Pad VT100 brings a voice-capable, 7-inch Android tablet to India’s airwaves originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already gotten our hands on the Archos 7 Home Tablet, but the Archos 8 has been considerably harder to come by, and hasn’t made much of a public showing since a brief appearance courtesy of the FCC back in May. The folks at Archos Lounge have now gotten their hands on the bezel tablet, however, and given us our first real look at the device. As you can probably tell from the form factor, this one is primarily designed to be used propped up on a table or a desk, but you can fold away the kickstand and do a bit of bezel-enhanced web browsing if you like. Head on past the break for Archos Lounge‘s video of both tablets — en français, of course — and look for the Archos 8 around the 11:20 mark.

Continue reading Archos 8 Home Tablet gets unboxed and examined

Archos 8 Home Tablet gets unboxed and examined originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re being told that Verizon has a pair of devices that it’s identifying as “e-readers” on the roadmap for September of this year, but what’s really interesting is that they’re called “Entourage.” It’s possible there’s no association to the company of the same name, but we’re kind of thinking that the carrier has hooked up with the makers of the oddball Edge for these devices — especially since we know they both share an affinity for Android. We don’t know the specifics of the units other than the fact that they’ll be 7- and 10-inch tablets — presumably sans the Edge’s crazy dual-display design, though we can’t say for sure. Verizon has yet to play the e-reader game the same way Sprint and AT&T have with the Kindle and Nook — and of course, we’ve no doubt they’d love a viable iPad competitor. Who’s buying?

[Thanks, RBF]

Verizon getting two e-readers / tablets from Entourage in September? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The lesser of ASUS’ two Eee Pad tablets announced at Computex this year, the EP101TC, is getting itself a software rejig ahead of its planned early 2011 launch. Originally slated to run on Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Compact 7 — a wordy OS, if nothing else — the Pad will now entrust its operational infrastructure to Google’s Android. ASUS is currently working on prototypes with Froyo on board, but Gingerbread (or Android 3.0) has not been ruled out as a possible final OS choice. We’re told to expect the first public demos at CES 2011, with retail units likely following on from there at a relatively brisk pace.

ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC opts for Android, dumps Windows Embedded Compact 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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