For a while there, some people were optimistic about the Palm name living on with future devices; despite HP’s acquisition of the long time smartphone/PDA company. Even today, word has it that the Palm Pre 2 will be coming to the US starting tomorrow through Verizon Wireless.

However, that’s looking to be the last time we’ll be seeing that name used with any future webOS device because the brand name Palm was pretty much MIA during HP’s special event today. In fact, every portion of the event showcased the HP branding without the subtle instance of Palm’s name being mentioned.

From the HP TouchPad to the HP Pre 3, we utterly see the once formidable name no longer breathing life in any of the devices announced today. Regardless of that, it was inevitably only a matter of time before HP ‘s name would solely highlight products from their camp.

Naturally, we’ll look back at the Palm’s history and realize that they’ve made their mark since their brand recognition is still moderately known around the world. So, we’ll all push forward and now that HP is committed to webOS, they’ll undoubtedly continue the legacy established by Palm.

via PreCentral

In all honestly, it might be just a little too late for the announcement regarding the Palm Pre 2’s arrival on US shores. For a while there, many people were fairly certain that the latest webOS device would be making its way to Verizon, but as time continued to go on, it seemed like it was a bust.

However, the handset will indeed be making its debut on Big Red’s lineup starting tomorrow as HP announced the long awaited news today at their webOS event in San Francisco. Meanwhile, it’s somewhat surprising since the existence of its successor, the Palm Pre 3, was also unveiled at the show. Nonetheless, Verizon customers can fetch themselves the webOS 2.0 powered device starting tomorrow.

Sure you can skip out on the Palm Pre 2 and decide to go after the Pre 3, but you’ll have to wait until the summer to get one – with no word yet on carrier availability. Right now though, the Palm Pre 2 is going to be here and will be the latest webOS powered device to hit the US market.

via SlashGear

With the just-announced HP TouchPad having more professional features, and the tiny HP Veer targeted at the younger crowd, HP and Palm (actually it seems it’s only HP now) ought to introduce something in-between at today’s “Think Beyond” event. And they did – the HP Pre 3!

Announced as “a smartphone for professionals without giving up personal passions”, the HP Pre 3 with webOS 2.2 has a 3.6″ display at 480×800 pixels of resolution, 5MP camera with “video stabilization” and a front-facing cam. The phone comes at 0.63 (16mm) inches thickness and 5.5 ounces (156 grams) of weight. There is, of course, full Adobe Flash support in the browser.

As far as chipset goes, it is powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8×55 CPU, and has 512MB of RAM. There will be two versions with different radio types – EVDO world phone, and HSPA+ version for GSM networks. Internal storage will also come in two flavors – 8GB and 16GB of flash memory.

We are pretty psyched about this one’s clock frequency – it is probably an overclocked 1.2GHz Snapdragon, but, judging from the “only” HD 720p video the camera is capable of, it might not be dual-core. Sigh. Otherwise it is compatible with the new version of the Touchstone charging gizmo, and has a 1230mAh battery.

The new features of webOS 2.1 are really many, but HP Synergy is supported for syncing your business and personal contacts and communication. The coolest feature – you can just tap your HP TouchPad tablet with the Pre 3, and share stuff between the two (for example, the web page you are currently enjoying). Fortunately, there seems to be full Flash Player 10.1 support in the browser, which will literally bring the full web to the device. And hopefully, this new 1.4 GHz processor will be able to keep up with the load.

The HP Pre 3 should be available this summer. Pricing, however, has not been announced yet.

source: HP

Hewlett-Packard and Palm just announced their smallest webOS device, the HP Veer. The tiny munchkin has a 2.6″ 320×400 pixels display, plus a small slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

The phone is “about the size of a credit card“, and has a Qualcomm 7230 Snapdragon processor, clocked at 800 MHz. It’s the same one we have in the T-Mobile G2, folks, so this tiny phone shouldn’t complain from lack of power, since the chipset is built with the 45nm technology. Whether the 2.6″ display will provide bearable screen real estate though remains to be seen.

There is a a 5MP camera, plus all the goodies expected from a modern smartphone, like Wi-Fi, GPS, microUSB port, Bluetooth and audio jack. It will run on HSPA+ networks, like AT&T and T-Mobile.

The HP Veer has 8GB of built-in storage, and same memory as the Palm Pre 2, 512MB RAM. Look for the tiny webOS 2.2 phone in the Spring. Sadly, it was not specified on which network the bite-size HP Veer will appear, or how much it will cost.

source: HP

Those of you who waited long excruciating months for something to happen with Palm and webOS since HP bought Palm last year, you were just rewarded for the loyalty. After HP bragging about its might and innovation scaling capabilities, the HP TouchPad tablet was just announced, and, as far as specs go, it aims at the best.

The display is a 9.7″ of the IPS-LCD kind, with 768×1024 pixels of resolution, and “EZ-clean” oleophobic coating. That’s what we have in the iPad, but the TouchPad’s chipset is a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, which will be one of the most powerful mobile chipsets this year. The weight is 1.6 pounds at 0.54″ thickness.

The tablet is lacking a rear camera, just 1.3MP front-facing one, which kind of takes a little away from the dual-core purpose, but we are not fond of carrying around a 10-incher for shooting video anyway. For multimedia the slate also carries Beats audio speakers, and a standard 3.5mm jack. The three speakers arrangement – two on the left side, and one on the right – should allow for stereo audio output in both orientations.

There is an HP TouchPad version with just Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, while a second version adds a SIM card slot for 3G, as well as a GPS radio. The TouchPad will be available in the summer, and 4G versions are coming further down the road. There isn’t a memory card slot, but the slate comes with options for 16 and 32GB of internal flash memory. The RAM memory is 1GB desktop-grade DDR2, twice that of the Palm Pre 2.

WebOS is one of the most efficient mobile operating systems out there, so HP claims 8 hours or more of battery life from the 6300mAh juice pack. Palm’s inductive charging Touchstone thingy will be available for the TouchPad, as well as a feature  called touch-to-share, which will allow you to sync the slate with the HP Pre 3 phone, for example. You should also be able to share and stream multimedia through the Touchstone v2 dock to your TV, with the tablet acting as a remote when you take it out.

Besides the HP Touchstone dock for wireless charging and syncing, there are a few other accessories available for the HP TouchPad – a slim wireless keyboard (of course), and a handy case. Palm notes that you can charge the TouchPad while it’s in the case, if you are so inclined.

Jon Rubinstein called webOS 2.1 their “most important version” so far. It combines mutitasking, noifications, the Synergy cloud syncing services, universal search and the touchstone remote charging and syncing technology, and takes them even beyond, adding about 50 new features like VPN, voice dialing, and so on. The HP TouchPad will be running webOS 3.0, probably a version of 2.2 for tablets.

In addition to this already crazy software, HP Palm has reworked some apps so they utilize the larger screen real estate, like for example the email app, which will be similar to the iPad’s. Furthermore, there’s going to be full support for QuickOffice, Google Docs, Dropbox and Box.net. The TouchPad is to bring the full web to us thanks to Adobe Flash support, although the exact version of the supported Adobe software was not specified. Here’s for hoping it won’t be the “Lite” one.

source: HP

UPDATED: HP’s website also briefly listed the TouchPad, HP Veer and the Pre 3 as S, M and L sizes of webOS. So these devices are obviously going up for sale pretty soon after today’s announcement.

Oh, the information age we live in! Not only devices leak straight from factories or absent-minded employees these days, but also an hour before there much-hyped presentation.

PreCentral managed to get behind the curtain of the preparations for HP/Palm “Think Beyond event”, and got the info about a 1.5 pound 10″ tablet with 0.51″ thickness, which is to be called the HP TouchPad, and was known as the Topaz before.

The 10-incher had some really tiny phone to keep it company, which is really intriguing. That is probably the low-end teen phone, which was named Castle. The webOS munchkin is supposed to appear on Verizon, Sprint and AT&T as a Palm Pre version for the younger crowd, but is lacking a physical keyboard.

Other than that, these specs coincide with what was leaked before, so most of it will probably turn out true today – dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon chipset with up to 8 hours of battery life. We’ll know very soon, stay tuned for our coverage of the HP and Palm event. Finally some great news for webOS fans.

via Engadget

It surely does pay being a developer for Palm’s webOS platform since we’ve seen the longtime smartphone maker give out free Palm Pre Plus units to developers in the past.

However, they’re at it again by giving out exactly 100 unlocked versions of the GSM Palm Pre 2 to those who are enrolled in their developer support program. Naturally, it’s a nice gesture on their part, but we’d imagine it going a long way since we’re on the verge of seeing some new hardware being announced tomorrow at their special event. Still, these free Palm Pre 2 units will prove to be valuable for developers who are intent and serious about branching out the platform to new heights.

Now this is a first come, first serve process to developers – so don’t wait too long because they’re obviously not going to last for long. Some have already been contacted by Palm via e-mail regarding the free units, but if you haven’t, you might want to drop them a line to let them know that you’re interested.

via PreCentral

In the never ending guessing game that’s been playing out for some time now, it appears that the Palm Pre 2 will actually see the light here in the US market.

Believed to be in cell phone limbo, the latest webOS powered smartphone is positioning itself to become available through Verizon come February 17th. This new revelation comes from an internal product page at a third party retailer, but some wonder if it’ll even have the chance of getting the spotlight seeing that Big Red is readying themselves with the iPhone 4 and the impending amount of new Android sets on the horizon.

Moreover, it’ll throw some people into a pickle after seeing what HP/Palm has in store in terms of new hardware at their special event next week. And when you’re faced with the knowledge that there are so many other devices coming out in the near future, will the Palm Pre 2 even have the chance to utter a single word? We’ll see how Big Red plays this one out in terms of marketing and advertising for the Palm Pre 2.

source: Engadget

Looking back, Palm’s webOS devices for Sprint still managed to bring customers in, granted it might not have been a staggering amount, it still nonetheless aided the pin dropping network. After the experience, some would question Sprint’s commitment in potentially siding with the long time smartphone maker again in the future.

As we near HP/Palm’s eventual event next week, where they’ll more than likely unveil some new webOS products, we’re starting to hear the faint whispers of them partnering with Sprint once again. It’s being reported that Sprint is letting their corporate customers know that they’ll be carrying new Palm products some time in the future. Not just one apparently, but we might see more this time around – possibly the Palm Pre 2 or some other unknown device. Furthermore, it sounds like some sort of Palm tablet will be making its way down to Sprint as well.

It’s fine and dandy that Sprint is giving Palm a second shot at their business, but we’ll surely know more surrounding this exciting round of speculation as we near HP/Palm’s special event next week.

source: PreCentral

We’re a week away from the HP event, which is scheduled to take place in the heart of the Silicon Valley – San Francisco.

There, HP is to demonstrate in practice what it means with this teasing “Think big. Think small. Think beyond.” concept. The two videos below – one showing a mysterious phone/tablet, and the second one showing a Roman Caesar downplaying “the end of the world thing, earthquakes, hurricanes, you know, all the basic stuff” in favour of the upcoming HP event, because it will “change and inspire the world“, and because it’s going to be, you know, the real thing.

Seems like HP is definitely not messing around, with news like the one its CEO Leo Apotheker told the company’s employers in no uncertain terms that they have to get rid of their iDevices. Moreover, the fact HP really means business is confirmed by the report what to expect from the upcoming HP tab, which is presumably dubbed the “HP Palm Topaz” (more info on this beast here).

And now the important part – do you believe HP will deliver?

source: The Official Palm Blog and You Tube