Although it’s questionable at this point whether or not we’ll ever see the Palm Pre 2 splash on our side of the world, there might be a slim hint of hope left for the latest webOS powered smartphone.

If you’ve ever had to transfer content on your phone, such as photos and your address book, then you’re probably aware of the nifty gadget that some stores use to accomplish that once considered tedious process. One person managed to take a snap shot of Verizon’s CelleBrite units which has the Palm Pre 2 listed, but don’t start thinking too far ahead at this point. Granted that some people out there would love to see the handset come to market in the US, its presence in Verizon’s CelleBrite system doesn’t necessarily mean that the handset is indeed coming.

Specifically, various devices not sold or offered by Big Red are listed in there as well to help their employees transfer content. But then again, there is always that slim possibility that its presence alone might signify a potential release. We can only hope at this point.

source: PreCentral

Palm Pre 2 listed on Verizon's CelleBrite machine.

HP CEO Leo Apotheker recently shared some of his thoughts and hopes about HP and it seems his major point is that HP should become “cool” like Apple. Just how cool? Reportedly, Apotheker called on his Bangalore employees to “get rid of their iPhones and iPads.” The main reason – of course – is the new webOS software, but HP’s head honcho also mentioned that the hardware is ready and will ship within weeks of their announcement.

Apotheker asked 4,500 HP employees to raise their hands if they considered Apple cool and after the majority of them did, he actually urged them to get rid of their Apple products. HP’s CEO also pumped expectations for new products launched in the US on February 9th. No surprise about this, right ?

Apotheker is on a three-day tour in India meeting with employees reportedly to get some feedback about HP’s progress. But hold on as HP’s February webOS event will be followed by a March 14th event where he will announce his vision about the company’s future. Is HP finally going to bring hardware to match the exciting capabilities of the webOS platform? Let us know in the comments.

source: PreCentral via BBC Mobile

Although it might not have been thought of being as a shock when the Palm Pixi Plus was seen missing from Verizon’s lineup recently, but when we see the handset being sold relatively cheap online, it’s not too surprising that other retailers would soon do the same thing.

With less than 8 hours left, one online retailer is selling the webOS powered Palm Pixi Plus for the incredible price of $49.99 no-contract. Yeah, you heard that right, this is a brand new smartphone that’s selling for dirt cheap without any contracts required! Come to think about it more, this doesn’t necessarily happen on a daily basis since most devices carry at least a $200 price tag if you want to buy them without signing an agreement.

The 88 percent savings you’re receiving from this special offer is undoubtedly amazing, so you’d better place your order now before the countdown reaches zero.

source: 1saleaday via PreCentral

If you’ve visited Verizon’s web site of late, you may not have known, but the Palm Pixi Plus has been removed from their listing of available handsets to purchase. Although it might not come off as being surprising for some people, it now places the load on the Palm Pre Plus as being the sole webOS offering on Big Red’s lineup.

Obviously, not all devices will live on through the ages, but the departure of the Palm Pixi Plus might be another blow to HP/Palm since we’re finding fewer carriers holding onto any webOS smartphones. Even more, it’s rather alarming since we have yet to see any US carrier take hold of the Palm Pre 2 – which can be seen as a big blow in getting the platform into the hands of consumers.

But then again, you can still find the Palm Pixi Plus on HP’s Wireless Central site and even through the variety of online retailers out there.

source: Verizon & HP via PreCentral

HP will very soon be unveiling its first webOS tablets since it bought Palm last year, and some renders were already leaked. The HP Palm Topaz is one of them, and is expected for announcement on February 9th. Its specs have leaked from HP, and are actually very 2011, beating a lot of slates still waiting to happen.

First off, the screen – a 9.7″ IPS-LCD affair, with 768×1024 pixels of resolution, and something called “EZ-clean” coating – oleophobic we guess. While the display is what we have on the first generation iPad, down to the last pixel of resolution, the chipset is dual-core. A 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8660 will be powering the HP Palm Topaz, and we can’t say we are not grinning with delight here – this silicon should be blazing fast.

It allows for 1080p Full HD video recording, but the Topaz is lacking a rear camera, just 1MP front-facing one, which kind of defeats 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 stereo audio speakers, and a standard 3.5mm jack. The lack of HDMI port is a relative disappointment.

The connectivity options seem to come in two versions – one with just Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, while the other is adding a SIM card slot for 3G, and a GPS radio as well. LTE version is coming further down the road. Another restriction is the lack of memory card slot, but the slate comes with options for 16, 32, and 64GB of flash memory.

The 512MB RAM is desktop-grade DDR2, and, considering it is running the light and efficient webOS, HP claims 8 hours or more of battery life from the 24WHr juice pack. The inductive charging magic will be available for the HP Palm Topaz, as well as something called tap-to-share, which will allow you to sync the slate, share and stream multimedia through the Touchstone v2 dock. The feature includes streaming video to your TV, with the Topaz acting as a remote when you take it out.

The estimated weight is the decent 1.5 pounds (700g), and the slate measures just 0.55″ (14mm) thick. It doesn’t look bad at all, and, considering HP’s world-class supply chain, the company might have even been able to negotiate great component and logistics deals to pass onto us consumers as powerful, but affordable tablets. We should know very soon. The specs sheet is from the fall, so there could be more surprises in store for us in the final version. What do all Palm fans think, does that already sound like a noble comeback to you?

source: PreCentral

This doesn’t particularly happen that often, but when you see a smartphone priced super cheap, you can’t help resist just taking a quick peek at what it’s all about.

Verizon’s Palm Pixi Plus clearly might not have the specs or allure to attract customers from afar, but when you see it selling for $60 as-is, meaning no-contract signing required, you’ll overlook some of its less than stellar specs and pick it up. Currently, the site DailySteals is offering the webOS powered device for $60 with an extra $5 going towards shipping – bringing its total cost of ownership to a mere $65! That’s undeniably impressive since you’re not required to sign any contracts and definitely will stand out from the crop of other handsets requiring your commitment to some 2-year agreement.

With less than 10 hours left before this deal is gone for good, you’d better come to a decision to pick one up or not because this isn’t something that happens all the time.

source: DailySteals via SlickDeals

Somewhat lost in things now that the Palm Pre 2 has arrived, but the Palm Pixi still has some surprises up its sleeves – despite its less than stellar specs in tow.

Just because you’re regarded as the kid brother to the Palm Pre doesn’t mean you can compete at the same level as the big boys – and that’s exactly where we find the Palm Pixi. Thanks to a project that was started last October, the latest version of the UberKernel for the Palm Pixi enables the tiny handset to throttle itself to the speed of 806MHz. The substantial speed bump actually benefits more users than one would think over other webOS devices.

Though, you’ll have to watch the settings to find that perfect sweet spot in getting the most out of your tweaks – so it won’t melt the handset or kill battery dramatically. So if you have the itch in bulking up your Palm Pixi, you can check this process out for yourself.

via PreCentral

For those who managed to scope a Palm Pre 2, it appears that an update for webOS 2.1.0 is being pushed out as we speak. Although it’s unclear as to what the new update has in store for handset owners, some were fortunate in seeing the notification for the new update – but it’s hard to fathom which devices are being targeted.

Specifically, Rogers Palm Pre 2 owners have stated that they were the ones able to fully install the update – where after completing the process, they’re now greeted to a new HP logo plastered on the boot up screen. However, others aren’t as lucky since they’re simply stuck at the “Checking for updates” status and do not seeing anything else.

In the US, there have been few people who reported seeing a notification for webOS 2.1.0 hitting Sprint Palm Pre units, while others sporting Palm Pre 2 handsets report experiencing bugs with the update.

via MobileSyrup & PreCentral

Fresh on the minds of some people, we were treated yesterday to some juicy information regarding HP/Palm’s upcoming webOS tablets. Needless to say that we’ll get to learn a lot more about them come February 9th when they’re speculated to be officially unveiled, but today we find something interesting hanging around at the USPTO.

This time around, HP has apparently filed for the trademark “TOUCHPAD” which appears to encompass a broad range of product categories from PDAs to tablet computers. Some believe it to be a name that will ultimately be adopted by either the “Topaz” and “Opal” webOS powered tablets, with the other potentially using the “PalmPad” moniker.

Moreover, it could be something entirely different from what we can suspect, but we’ll surely know when that February 9th date begins to draw closer.

source: USPTO via Pocket-now & Engadget

Can’t wait until next month when HP/Palm is slated to hold a press event where they plan on having a webOS announcement? Well, you’re in luck today because a rendered image of one of their upcoming tablets have been leaked alongside a potential time-line of when we’ll see these webOS powered tablets come to market.

First and foremost, we find more evidence of hearing about more than one webOS tablet after HP/Palm’s tag line of “Something big, Something small, Something beyond” was used in its invitations for their upcoming event. Specifically, the first rendered images of the “Topaz” webOS tablet have been leaked and indicates that it’ll be packing a 9” display. Conversely, there will also be a 7” model, going by the codename of “Opal,” which will round out the company’s lineup and will focus heavily on e-reading. Additionally, faint whispers believe that both tablets will be powered by unspecified 1.2GHz processors under the hood.

Going back to the Topaz, the leaked shots show us that it sports a very minimalistic design that omits any buttons from its design, but it’s assumed that the gesture area will rotate accordingly to the orientation you flip it to. Moreover, we find a front-facing camera, microUSB port on the bottom edge, and three speakers – two on the left side and one on the right. It seems that the speaker layout will allow for stereo audio output in both orientations. And finally, we see it sporting that glossy finish to its rear, much like the original Palm Pre, which could hint to the notion that the Touchstone won’t be usable in charging the tablet wirelessly. Nonetheless, we won’t know for sure until HP/Palm officially unveils the tablet.

Granted that some are already drooling over this despite the fact that we have yet to see fully functional tablets, it seems like we’re going to have to wait some time before we even see the Opal hit the market. However, it’s being reported that the larger Topaz will be launching first out of the gate, but no word on any kind of time frame. Based on what’s shown from an internal marketing slide, the Opal is slated to arrive some time in September 2011 – meaning, we’ll see Wi-Fi only, AT&T 3G, and Verizon LTE versions. Regretfully, the AT&T LTE version of the Opal won’t see the light of day until July of 2012 – which is a hefty time away from right now. Still, we’ll surely know more about HP/Palm’s road map and strategy next month during their event.

source: Engadget

Topaz webOS tablet