HP announced three new Mobile products this past week on February 9th in San Francisco, CA. After the buy out of Palm last year for $1.2 Billion dollars. The mighty Hewlett Packard decided to throw their gauntlet into the Mobile Ring space by purchasing a mobile Pioneer named Palm. Why you may ask? Well, with the mobile space heating up and the room for growth exponentially available. Hewlett Packard sees an opportunity for the company to enter a market that its so far been unable to compete in. HP decided to buy PALM for two of the following major reasons:
1. The very Intuitive and TRUE MULTITASKING webOS Mobile Operating System platform.
2. The multiple patents that Palm has in the Mobile Marketplace.
Since acquisitions normally take time to complete and also the integration of two companies with talent pool fallout and new hires into HP/PALM, the company has finally announced three new products: HP Veer, HP Pre 3, and HP Touchpad. From what i've read and watched about the new products, i've come up with the following PROS and CONS for the new products:
PROS
1. The HP Veer is a nice 800MHZ small form factor original Pre type slider that is meant for the teen market. Not a bad small phone.
2. The HP Pre 3 is a great style phone. It takes the original form factor of the Palm Pre/Pre 2 by enlarging the screen size to 3.6" screen. Just a 0.1" bigger screen then Apple's Iphone which is the most popular smartphone on the market.
3. The HP Pre 3 packs a whopping Qualcomm 1.4Ghz Processor
4. The HP Touchpad is pretty much spec for spec when it comes to the Ipad when it comes to size and weight, but when it comes to Processor Speed and Support, we are talking about a Qualcomm Dual Core 1.2Ghz Snapdragon Processor and full FLASH SUPPORT!!! (Gimme a Break Apple, you may be able to fool the rest of the world with your no-having Flash Support mobile products, but not me. HTML 5.0 will not be majority of the websites till about 2-3 years from now if you are lucky). Therefore, i will take my HP Touchpad which supports HTML 5.0 and Adobe FLASH!)
5. Touch-to-Share Technology built-in the HP Pre 3 and HP Touchpad. What is this? This is a cool new feature that allows you to share files, webpages, contacts, and many other things by just TAPPING your Smartphone and Tablet together!! It's that easy!
6. A brand new Touchstone Inductive charger that enables you to put your HP Touchpad at an angle in a new Exhibition Mode which will allow you to use your HP Touchpad as a PHOTO FRAME, CLOCK, CALENDAR, SPORTS, STOCKS, etc.
7. Hints of a Cloud Basic Music service coming to the HP Touchpad and Pre 3
8. HP Touchpad will feature Beats Audio Technology by Dr. Dre for great sound!
9. HP has signed partnerships with Dreamworks, Time Inc., and Amazon to launch for the HP Touchpad.
10. HP Touchpad offers the first customized On-screen virtual keyboard to fit different hand sizes such as XS, S, M, and L. Yes, you can adjust the size of the ON-Screen keyboard. HP has also put the numbers above the keyboard for less keystrokes for typing things.
11. Seamless work flow by allowing messages, calls, and emails to go back and forth beween your Super Smartphone (HP Pre 3) and Tablet (HP Touchpad).
12. New Marketing with heavy emphasis on "Everybody ON".
13. HP did some heavy marketing through the Grammy Awards which is cool. They are starting to get the word out on HP webOS!
CONS
1. The HP Pre 3 and HP Touchpad will be released this Summer!?!?!?
2. No Pricing Information has been announced
3. No Carrier Information has been announced
4. Making people wait longer for their products means chances of losing even more webOS faithfuls to Android, Iphone, WP7, Blackberry, etc..
5. No phones featuring 4.0" screens. Yes, some people want 4" or higher screens.
6. No new phones with just a touchscreen and no Keyboard. Yes some people wanted HP/PALM to come out with a new Smartphone that would have NO KEYBOARD! What the hell people? Palm phones have always had a Keyboard.
Either way, i am happy to see that HP is doubling down on webOS like it said it would during the Earnings Conference Call last year after it purchased Palm. So far, i see HP putting their money where their mouth is! Thats all i can ask. Please continue the fight HP!
Sunil
