HP WebOS tablet to ship early July

HP's WebOS-based tablet - the TouchPad, as it's officially known - hits Blighty's shores early next month following its 1 July arrival in the US. Punters in France and Germany get it on the same day we do - delivers in Canada commence mid-July, HP said today. Australians will have to wait until "later this year". HP TouchPad …

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh..

If I'm paying iPad prices I'll get an iPad where I have the known quantities of the App Store (good and bad) or Cydia, not a WebOS device where ongoing support and development is a unknown.

[Anonymous Coward]

These will sell like hot cakes

These will fly off the shelves, I bet they won't be able to meet demand.

Who's going to be able to resist a device that's not an iPad or Android? Especially from a top tier manufacturer with loads and loads of apps.

Oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing

That this tablet doesn't seem to have any other connections other than USB sync and charge.

No HDMI, no VGA, nothing, not even with accessories. Isn't this a business tablet? How are users supposed to plug it into things like projectors?

The it has no SD card (again not even with adapter) and not even a basic rear camera either?

Seems UK price has been announced at £399 for the 16GB, £479 for 32GB - exactly same as the iPad 2.

Hope HP is planning on discounting them soon. Maybe buy a server get 5 Touchpads deal. Can't see it making it otherwise.

[Jolyon]

Connections

Yep, that's a baffling omission for a business device - I wonder if they're suffering from cross-division interference along the lines of "If they can do everything you could do on a laptop then who will buy our laptops?"

[KYOCHIN]

WebOS is fine but the rest is.

I had a Pre2 and I agree that WebOS is great but the rest is just crap. Apps are crap and lots of developers are leaving the community not because of money but HP's attitude toward small developers is not great. Worst thing is touch screen, it's simply not designed well, iOS is great not because there are so many apps but the touch screen is designed to work with even fuzzy inaccurate taps. Also once pre2's screen is bit wet, it's unusable, iOS is fine.

[Giles Jones]

Pre 2

It is sold at a low end price though. £329 in the UK.

Perhaps they should improve it and charge more?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Also once pre2's screen is bit wet"

There's got to be a quip to be made here about surfing the intertubes with one hand and the screen getting a bit wet as a result... but it escapes me.

[Drew Scott]

Aspect

First non-iPad I've seen that's 4:3. Personally I don't think widescreen works well in portrait.

[ratfox]

Optimistic

I believe that any new entrant on the tablet market should have to realize they have to make it either cheaper or better than the iPad. Better is quite difficult considering the quantity of apps for the iPad, and that its design is mostly satisfactory. So make it CHEAPER. Remember that Toyota made a loss on every Prius sold for the first few years.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Better than number one"

Not sure how HP expects to achieve its goal with this price and paltry feature list, don't think webOS alone makes up for the shortcomings.

[Andy E]

Not after an iPaQ

I had an iPaq for quite sometime and the thing that really, really let it down was the awful software HP stuck on top of Windows Mobile. (yes I know Windows mobile was not that great either). It made some functions counter intuitive if not impossible. The documentation was not up to much either.

I'm going to give this a miss and see what the reviews are like.

[Bad Beaver]

don't care one bit but

when can I get my hands on the Pre3? That's where my money's at. The battery in my Nokia is getting weaker by the day and I don't want to invest in the damn company anymore.

[technohead95]

WebOS = Titanic

There's absolutely no benefit in someone investing their hard earned cash on a device which has so little support and where WebOS market share is falling at such a massive rate month on month.

In the 3 months between Jan 2011 and April 2011, Palm/WebOS lost 19% of its marketshare (http://technology-headlines.com/2011/06/03/us-smartphone-ownership-up-13-percent-in-first-quarter-according-to-latest-comscore-report/). While Android and Apple showing the only signs of growth, I can't see WebOS lasting much more than a few more months. By Summer, HP will need to pay people to take these tablets off their hands.

[MacRat]

USB Device ID?

When this is plugged into a computer, will it actually identify itself as an HP device or will they try once again to trick the computer into thinking they are an iPod?

[Robert E A Harvey]

Sorry. HP

I've waited over a year for what turns out to be a damp squib.

Just why do you suppose I'd want to buy this?