We knew these would be coming, but images of the new HP/Palm tablets featuring webOS have leaked and they’re looking pretty sexy so far. One is a 9-inch tablet called Topaz, and the other is a 7-inch device codenamed Opal. We expect these tablets to be unveiled during its February 9th developers event where we’ll be live-blogging the day’s events.
A quick peek at the render and we’ll see elements reminiscent of webOS devices today. There are no physical buttons on it, but it does have the glowing touch-sensitive area below that takes you back to the homescreen. The interface is also familiar and will likely use the same touch gestures to initiate certain events. There is also a front-facing camera, standard on most tablets these days it seems, and a microUSB port down below. The renders do look sleek and very Palm Pre-esque — it’s as if HP and Palm have taken the smartphone and steamrolled it a little bit.
According to Engadget, who leaked the images and received insider information on the devices:
We’re told that units will start to arrive at Palm HQ in June as production ramps up for launch later this year — a timeline backed up by an internal marketing slide we received that lists WiFi-only, AT&T 3G, and Verizon LTE versions of the Opal arriving in September 2011, and on AT&T LTE in July 2012.
That’s tricky business there. There are several Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets being released this year, many of which are even 4G capable, so timing here is critical. If HP releases this too late – and it appears to be much later than originally planned – it may be swimming in a large sea of capable and desirable Android tablets, the BlackBerry PlayBook and the next generation iPad. Of course, there are no solid dates or pricing right now, but if September is correct, it could be DOA.
[Via: Engadget]