So my brother and I each ordered a box of See's Candies Valentine's chocolates from my niece for her annual candy drive at school this year. Naturally, she excitedly handed over the candies to us on Feb. 9 ... in front of the two, um, people we were supposed to give the candies to. Let's just say that once we hand over these chocolates to said recipients on the 14th, there really won't be as much of a surprise.
Which brings us to Hewlett-Packard's announcement of a new webOS based tablet, the TouchPad, at its "Think Beyond" event on, well, Feb. 9. The fact that HP was unveiling a tablet that used Palm's webOS was pretty much assumed as a given leading up to the event.
Still, the first full-fledged, webOS-powered direct iPad rival is still sort of kind of, well, a big deal. Specs include a 9.7-inch touchscreen with a 1024-by-768 resolution display. Not sure if this is a coincidence but that's exactly the size and screen resolution of Apple's first-generation iPad. The TouchPad does up the ante by throwing in a dual-CPU 1.2GHz processor, along with Adobe Flash support and a front-facing camera.
Folks who like drawing attention to themselves by taking photos with a huge honkin' tablet will likely be dismayed by the lack of a rear-facing camera. Memory options are limited to to 16GB and 32GB (so no 64GB like the iPad).
The good news is that the specs are still solid when viewed in the present. But it might get old real fast depending on what Apple has up its sleeve for the iPad 2. Given the large lead Apple already has in terms of tablet sales and mind share, it would be bad to find oneself playing catch up right off the bat, especially given the growing number of competitors in the field.
Image © HP
Comments
Interesting! I hope that everybody’s Sunday was great and I hope that they had a great Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and I hope that they are having a great Valentine’s Day!