Get to know the HP TouchPad - video

HP Veer

   HP Veer is a smaller Pre 3 QWERTY keyboard slider with less power and less performance. But you can still do a lot with it because has the same business corporate style.

   The processor is a Qualcomm with 800 MHz frequency hidden somewhere under the 2.6 inches multitouch screen with 18-bit color and 320x400 megapixels resolution. There are no details regarding the RAM memory so I will get to the storage which is 8 GB and internal only, as there is no support for card extension. Veer has only one 5 megapixels camera on the back for pictures, geotagging and video recording. Now I do not see any reason for a front camera due to the small size of the screen and will not help too much in a video call. The same as Pre 3, this one has speaker, dual microphone for noise cancellation, accelerometer, ambient light and proximity sensor. The connectivity is the same too with HSDPA, HSUPA, encrypted Wi-Fi (HP Mobile Hotspot included), stereo capable Buetooth, A-GPS and the 3.5 mm headphone jack. The 910 mAh non-removable battery has a 300 hours stand-by and up to 5 hours talking performance.

   Regarding the software, Veer is the same with Pre 3 starting with webOS, Adobe Flash Player support and including HP Synergy and Touchstone applications. Overall it appears to be a small but can handle it smartphone with the size of a credit card. This is a competitor for Blackberry devices, for a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro and others. Anyway great surprises from HP these days.

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HP Pre 3

   HP Pre 3 - the business smartphone. Together with the TouchPad, Hewlett Packard has announced the Pre 3, a device for 'professionals who require a powerful mobile productivity with an eye on personal connectivity.' This is another great result of HP`s acquisition of Palm and I hope they will continue to release such products in the future. And you will see why if you will read this article below.

   Hardware. This is a powerful word these days when talking about smartphones. But it is the most powerful if we are referring to this phone`s CPU. I can not believe it (as there were rumors that we will not see any CPUs with frequency higher than 1.2 GHz this year)  but Pre 3 has a Qualcomm Scorpion at 1.4 GHz with Adreno 205 graphic chipset. So it`s not dual-core, but this is the fastest mobile CPU I have seen so far. RAM memory has only 512 MB and the storage can come with 8GB or 16GB as there is no support for slot card. The screen is a 3.58 inches multi-touch display with 24-bit color and 480x800 WVGA resolution. Yes this is not as large as other smartphones have because Pre 3 is a slider - has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Connectivity does not show too much with the 3G HSDPA & HSUPA, Bluetooth 2.1 with AD2P stereo support. But the Wi-Fi is a little different with 802.11a/b/g/n 5 GHz and WPA, WPA2, WEP encryption. The wireless connection is different because the phone can work as a router which can support up to 5 devices connected simultaneously through HP mobile hotspot. There is also a microUSB 2.0 port, A-GPS, a 3.5 mm jack and sensors like accelerometer, ambient light, proximity or compass. If you want to take pictures or record a HD (720p) video there is a 5 megapixels camera on the back and if you need to attend a video conference there is a VGA front camera, a mono speaker as well as the dual-microphone with noise cancellation. The battery has only 1230 mAh - so I do not believe that can offer a great performance although they say is a high capacity one.

   As the TouchPad, this smartphone is running the webOS with HTML5 amd Adobe Flash support for internet browser. HP Synergy is again present which can connect almost any POP3, IMAP or corporate Microsoft Exchange server. An important application is the Quick Office Mobile Connect Suite with Word, Excel, PowerPoint editing, Pdf viewer including support for Google Docs and Box.net support. Other applications are: Google Maps, YouTube, Amazon MP3 store, Foursquare and more. The HP Touchstone is also there if you wish to exchange data with TouchPad or other webOS device. New is the HP Touchstone charging dock as can charge the phone only on contact (so without any plug-in cable).

   In conclusion - the HP announcement has many business environment words like: professionals, multi-tasking, productivity, customers, tasks, corporate - speaking clearly about what this phone is all about. In my opinion they could have done a better job if the Pre 3 had 1GB of RAM, a slot card support, a HDMI port and perhaps NFC (the future of mobile payments). But is great as it shows and I wonder what RIM with Blackberry has to say about this. Oh yeah... I do not hear anything :). So we will see this released this summer.

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HP TouchPad

   HP just announced their new Tablet PC with webOS - the TouchPad. This shows clearly the intention to try and get a byte from the slate`s market and is also a result of Hewlett`s Packard acquisition of Palm. But first lets see what features are under the case of this TouchPad.

   We can start with what`s the most visible piece - the screen. This is a 9.7 inches XGA capacitive multi-touch display with 18-bit color and 1024x768 resolution. The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2GHz dual-core which is faster than XOOM`s 1GHz from Motorola. Moving to connectivity, HP has placed A-GPS support (for 3G models only), Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n with WPA, WPA2 and WEP encryption, Bluetooth with AD2P, a micro-USB port for charging and 2.0 high speed and finally a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Regarding the memory, there is 1GB of RAM but there are 2 options for storage: 16 GB & 32GB (no words on any memory card slot). As multimedia the TouchPad has only one camera - a front-facing - of 1.3 megapixels which is a webcam made for video calling. Inside there is a stereo speakers system with Beats Audio and sensors like accelerometer, light sensor, compass (magnetometer) and gyroscope. The battery is a 6300 mAh giving the impression of performance in stand-by mode (as they did not detailed more). As accessories available are a dock, a case and a ultra-slim and ultra-compact wireless keyboard. 

   TouchPad is running the webOS 3.0 version - HP`s own tablet OS - and has Adobe Flash Player 10 support for internet browsing. Through HP Synergy, the webOS brings a different way of communication. And this means that if you sing in to Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Linkedin and Microsoft Exchange you will see all your contacts from all these accounts gathered in one place. Through Synergy you can share and check photos from Facebook, Snapfish and Photobucket again gathered in one window. This tablet has more - like YouTutbe, Twitter, instant messaging support. You can read a book as Amazon has announced their webOS application, that is if you are tired of watching one of the movies you will download from HP Movie Store. What is really a new approach is the HP Touchstone for TouchPad which is a 'touch-to-share' feature allowing you to share data between a webOS enabled phone and this tablet.

   At the end there are some important features missing. There is no back camera for live pictures or videos (not to mention the HD recording), the screen is not HD capable so I am not sure about the movies playback quality. The HDMI port is nowhere, no SD card slot and of course no NFC (but would be probably too much). Given these facts I see as a conclusion that HP TouchPad is more business oriented and made for the enterprise environment especially because they will integrate the QuickOffice Mobile Connect Suite as a support for Word, Excel and Powerpoint editing documents. So this may be in a battle with the Cisco Cius (expected to be released), but also with the iPad from Apple and perhaps with Palybook from RIM. As per the HP`s news we should see the TouchPad this summer, first with Wi-Fi only and later as 3G and 4G configuration.

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