Commercials with Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Russel Brand, Lea Michele and Jay-Z, among other celebs, are scheduled to air early June, for the HP Veer tiny phone, and in July, possibly right after the first webOS tablet, the HP Touchpad, hits retail. HP is obviously not sparing the cash to engrave webOS gear in consumer’s perceptions, doling out $10 million in celebrity contracts. The HP Veer is already strutting its munchkin stuff at the back of the New York Times

Not too shabby of a marketing campaign, and, considering webOS will be shipped along with every HP computer from next year as an alternative operating system, Palm’s software will reach a lot of potential clients. HP is still the world’s biggest computer maker, after all. The Palo Alto-based company’s newest slate is the first device to ship with a tablet edition of webOS, and it is quite the sleek experience, judging from our hands-on encounter with the HP TouchPad.

HP demonstrated some cool home automation management with the TouchPad the other day, but now we are only curious what will Lady Gaga do to the young and innocent webOS tablets and phones in her commercial, and will the directors stop just short of dressing her in them.

via PreCentral

The HP TouchPad might not yet be released, but with the summer months almost here, it’s approaching launch and getting more and more coverage. Now, it’s HP’s CTO Phil McKinney who demonstrated the tablet’s wireless home control capabilities by managing a lamp, fan and monitoring the temperature at Maker Fair 2011. As practical as it all sounds, it’s not very likely that compatible hackable home equipment will be in place for this exact feature of the TouchPad at launch.

We have no further details about the home control and automation capabilities of the tablet, but we do know that it has already been listed as “coming soon” on BestBuy, while over at WalMart it carried a price tag of $599 for the 32 gig model. Will the wonders of webOS 3.0 lure you into purchasing HP’s slate? Sound off in the comments below.

source: PreCentral

Just yesterday we showed you the full page ad for the HP Veer 4G that the manufacturer placed on the back page of the New York Times. Continuing to plug the nation’s smallest 4G enabled smartphone, HP turned today to the web where it paid for some banner ads to run on the YouTube desktop site. Using the same color scheme and font from the print ad, HP asks, “In a world of tablets, who needs a big phone?”

For the unaware or readers of the New York Daily News or New York Post, the HP Veer is a credit-card sized handset with a 2.6 inch screen and resolution of 320 X 400 pixels. Under the hood is a single core Qualcomm MSM7230 clocked at 800MHz and webOS 2.1 is installed on the device. A 5MP camera is around back and in case you were wondering about the battery in a device as small as the Veer, HP saw fit to send it to market with a 910mAh cell.

While AT&T is offering the phone for $99.99 with a signed 2-year contract, Best Buy has both the black and white versions of the phone available for the low, low price of zero as long as your John Hancock is affixed to the 2-year pact. While both colors can be ordered from Best Buy’s web site, at the stores only the white model can be taken home.

So on Monday, HP flashed the Veer 4G across the back of one of the world’s highest circulation newspapers. Tuesday saw the phone in a banner ad on top of one of the most visited web sites on the planet. Where will we see the HP Veer 4G tomorrow?

source: YouTube via Precentral

One day after appearing in a full page ad in the NY Times, the HP Veer shows up in a banner ad on YouTube's desktop site

The HP Veer 4G has been plastered on the back of today’s New York Times in a full-page ad by the handset’s manufacturer. In a smart move by HP, the phone is pictured in its actual size which allows readers to see just how petite the credit card sized smartphone is.

The copy of the ad doesn’t deal with the phone’s middle of the road specs, concentrating instead on the device’s main selling point as the smallest 4G smartphone in the nation. The HP Veer is currently on sale for $99.99 at AT&T with a signed 2-year contract and there is no doubt that HP spent a pretty penny on the advertisement hoping to whip up some interest in the model.

source: Precentral

HP’s foray into Tabletland hasn’t yet started, but the company’s European man-in-chief Eric Cador had already prepared a couple of words to scare off the competition and underline the future greatness of Hewlett-Packard. But let’s put it all in context:

“In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP’s products from our competitors, we became number one; in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus,” Cador concluded.

Oh, yes, you’ve got it right – the company hasn’t yet launched a single tablet product, but expectations are surely stellar high. Will the upcoming HP TouchPad manage to match the flight of Mr. Cador’s plane of thought? We leave all guesses to you, but one thing is for sure – Tabletland is getting “curiouser and curiouser.”

source: Gizmodo

Shortly after getting its own teaser page on Bestbuy’s website, the HP TouchPad has been spotted in yet another retailer’s database. It is now known that Walmart will most probably carry HP’s 9.7-inch tablet as well, and the evidence is said to be coming straight from the store’s internal computer system.

If the screenshot of Walmart’s database is to be believed, the device will be priced at $599 for its 32GB Wi-Fi-only version, which seems to coincide with what earlier HP TouchPad leaks pointed at. In comparison, that is exactly what an iPad 2 and a BlackBerry PlayBook with the same storage capacity and no 3G connectivity cost today. It is very likely that an entry-level, 16GB Wi-Fi-only model with a presumed price of $499 will be available too, but no hints regarding that one have been leaked out so far.

Unfortunately, an exact release date for the HP TouchPad is still nowhere in sight, but we are hoping to see it in stores as early as next month.

source: PreCentral via Electronista

The HP Pre 3 is under the spotlight again, and it seems like the upcoming webOS flagship is nearing its release. Fortunately, we are not dealing with rumors and blurry Pre 3 photos anymore – the HP Pre 3 is already available for pre-order through Amazon.de.

The only thing that is a bit worrying is that the Pre 3 is listed as out of stock and that an estimated shipping date is not available. At least the listing is giving us hope that the anticipated webOS smartphone could not be that far away from launching. As far as its price goes, the HP Pre 3 can be pre-ordered for 450 Euro or around $640, which sounds like a fair price for a contract-free device of its class.

Shaped similarly to its little brother, the HP Veer, the HP Pre 3 offers a 3.6-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 480 by 800 pixels. On the inside, the device is powered by a 1.4 GHz single-core processor backed up by 512 MB of RAM, and the neat-looking webOS 2.2 mobile platform is in charge of the whole show.

source: Amazon.de via Engadget

Having seen the HP TouchPad over at the FCC most recently, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to expect to see this one become a reality in the very near future, but when it’s being teased by the nation’s number one consumer electronics retailer, you know that something is surely brewing.

Big box retailer Best Buy now has a teaser site live on its web site explaining pretty much all the features and specifications of the upcoming webOS powered tablet. However, two of the most important items regarding the tablet are still unknown – specifically, its pricing and release date. Interestingly enough though, it’s slapped as “coming soon” on their site, which could potentially mean that we could very well be near its launch date.

Nonetheless, we can all drool and dream about the HP TouchPad, but of course, you can keep on checking Best Buy’s site to see if any changes or new information pop up regarding its release and pricing.

source: Best Buy via Mobileburn

AT&T has a pair of opposites available as the carrier launches today the Samsung Infuse 4G with a huge 4.5 inch display, and the HP Veer 4G which has a petite 2.6 inch screen. The price of each device is as different as the screen is on both models. The Veer 4G is $99.99 with a signed 2-year contract while the Infuse goes for $199.99 with a signed 2 year pact. For those of you who like to pay nothing for a brand new smartphone, Best Buy is offering the HP Veer 4G for the price of zero with a brand new contract.

The pair also has a diverse offering of operating systems. The Samsung Infuse 4G has Android 2.2 on board while the HP Veer 4G is the third webOS handset following the Pre and the Pixi. The version of the OS on the Veer is webOS 2.0.

So regardless if you have big or tiny hands, AT&T has a new smartphone for you that will fit your palm perfectly. And that is the, uh, long and short of it.

source: AT&T (Infuse 4G), (Veer 4G)

One month after the AT&T version of the HP Pre 3 made it past the bureaucratic rubber stampers at the FCC, the CDMA variant of the webOS phone made it through the same maze. This model of the Pre appears headed for a launch at Verizon. This model of the phone will be working on the CDMA (850, 1900MHz), UMTS (900, 2100MHz) and GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 MHz) frequencies making this a world phone for Big Red.

Still no word on when we see the Pre 3 launched, but now that both models can be legally sold, it shouldn’t be too much longer before the handset is released. For those who keep track of such things, the GSM model is listed as HSTNH-F30CN while the CDMA unit has the same exact model number except for the “N” at the end which is replaced with a “V” (for Verizon?).

Verizon has yet to introduce the HP Pre 3 but we do know that there are some major changes to the handset. The display has been  increased by half an inch to 3.6 inches and under the hood is a rather speedy 1.4GHz processor. Will the HP Pre 3 be the Pre model that finally lives up to the tremendous expectations that were placed on the original version of the phone, but were never met?

source: FCC via WirelessGoodness, Engadget