May 30, 2011
by Mark Ollig
Can the soon-to-be released HP TouchPad really become a serious contender to Apple’s number one selling iPad?
Fervent rumors over the blogosphere have been reverberating lately about the statement made by Hewlett-Packard (HP) European chief Eric Cador, during a recent press conference in Cannes, France.
According to The Telegraph (a U.K. website), Cador said, “in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one.”
Become better than number one?
As Cador well knows, the Apple iPad is currently the number one selling computing tablet on the planet.
Shouts of, “Them’s fightin’ words!” may well be the response from loyal Apple iPad users out there.
A recent video shows Cador telling an audience at a conference how HP currently has revenues over $120 billion world-wide, and employs some 300,000 people.
He also said, “(HP) is the biggest information technology company in the world.”
Suffice it to say when HP talks, people listen.
The HP TouchPad is expected to make its appearance in the US sometime this summer.
A close follower behind Apple’s iPad includes Motorola, with their Motorola Xoom tablet.
This tablet features the NVidia Tegra 1 GHz dual-core processor, and the Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) operating system, (upgradable to Android 3.1).
The Motorola Xoom contains a generous-sized 10.1-inch HD multi-touch display screen, along with a rear-facing 5.0 megapixel and front-facing 2.0 megapixel camera.
Yours truly noted in his Jan. 17 Bits & Bytes column, how the Motorola Xoom had won the 2011 CES “Best in Show” award.
The Motorola Xoom was released to the public this past February, and costs about $800 for the 32 GB 3G Licorice model.
To learn more about the Motorola Xoom, check out their website at http://tinyurl.com/5soxnll.
The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet by Research In Motion (RIM) is also a viable challenger compared to the iPad.
This tablet features the Cortex A9 1 GHz dual-core processor, and uses its own proprietary BlackBerry tablet operating system.
The BlackBerry PlayBook also features rear-facing 5 megapixel and front-facing 3 megapixel video cameras.
The BlackBerry PlayBook has a seven-inch liquid crystal display, and is available with 16, 32 or 64 GB of flash storage, and weighs in just under 1 pound.
The 16 GB BlackBerry PlayBook is priced at about $500, with the 32 GB and 64 GB models priced at about $600 and $700.
This tablet comes pre-loaded with several software applications, and became available to the public in April.
Additional information about the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can be found at its website, http://us.blackberry.com/playbook-tablet.
Another tablet called the Samsung Galaxy Tab, has a 7-inch diagonal display screen and operates using a 1 GHz Cortex-A8 Hummingbird processor.
This tablet utilizes the Android 2.2 mobile operating system.
The Galaxy Tab 3G model includes a front-facing 1.3 megapixel and rear-facing 3.0 megapixel camera/video recorder.
The cost of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3G is about $430.
More information about the Samsung Galaxy Tab can be found on their website use: http://tinyurl.com/3oc3x5j.
One of the newest tablets to hit the market this month is called the HTC Flyer.
The HTC Flyer comes with 16 GB of internal memory (expandable to 32 GB), and has a seven-inch multi-touch TFT (Thin Film Transistor) liquid crystal display screen.
It contains a 1.5 GHz single-core central processing unit, and operates using the Android (Gingerbread) operating system.
This tablet includes front-facing 1.3 megapixel autofocus camera, and a 5.0 megapixel HD autofocus video camera.
The 16 GB HTC Flyer tablet costs about $500.
Additional information about the HTC Flyer can be found at its website, http://www.htc.com.
Unlike the iPad, the HP TouchPad (and most other tablets) incorporates the ability to view content in Adobe Flash.
Both the Apple iPad, and the HP TouchPad, have a 9.7-inch multi-touch display screen.
The HP TouchPad uses the HP WebOS 3.0 version of its mobile operating system, and utilizes a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core central processing unit running at 1.2 GHz.
The Apple iPad 2 contains a 1 GHz dual-core Apple A5 processor, along with Apple’s iOS 4.3 operating system.
The HP Touchpad tablet weighs in at 1.63 pounds.
The three models of the Apple iPad 2 come in at 1.33, 1.34 and 1.35 pounds., respectively.
The Apple iPad 2 has internal memory available in a 16, 32, or 64 GB model.
The HP TouchPad comes in 16 or 32 GB sized models.
Information about the iPad 2 is available from Apple’s website, http://www.apple.com/ipad.
The cost for a 32 GB HP TouchPad is rumored to be about $599, which, coincidentally, is also the average base price of the 32 GB Apple iPad 2 (with Wi-Fi) model currently being sold.
More information about the HP TouchPad can be found on their website at http://tinyurl.com/4r4x665.
An informative video about the HP TouchPad can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/4yv7rrl.
Attention my legion of faithful readers, your Bits & Bytes general columnist is here to notify you to be on guard for HP’s upcoming mass-media advertising bombardment blitz. They will soon be advancing their position in this tablet war, by officially announcing their new, HP TouchPad tablet . . . that is all, dismissed.