Rumors have been doing the round of HP coming up with a tablet based on the Palm OS since the company acquired it earlier this year. But these have been confirmed by the company with a trademark that suggests it as the answer to Apple’s iPad that will make its debut in the markets late this year.
Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest pc maker had earlier plans of making its tablet on the Windows OS, but those plans were shelved as per the speculations and Palm OS gained the centre stage. According to the sources the company has applied to trademark the term PalmPad for computer hardware and mobile devices. However in another development the pc maker has now listed the Windows-based HP Slate 500 on its website. Again the speculations are riff that maybe the company is thinking of bringing out tablets based on both the OS. As Windows OS is more suited for the PCs and there are not many developers for the apps in Palm OS.
Contradicting all the reports the company is going ahead with the plans for the HP Slate 500 as is evident with the listing of one of its models on the company’s website with all its features and many of the details. As per the description on listed on the site, the device will include an 8.9-inch touchscreen and will run on Windows 7 Premium. The device will also have two cameras, one video and one still for users to do “web conferencing,”. The details of the tablet continued with on of the postings dated July 12th on the website says that the tablet will be Energy Star qualified and having a 1.6 GHz processor.
But any official comment on the issue has been avoided by the company till now giving rise to new rumors every now and then. The only that came out from the company earlier this month said that the Windows based tablet has been shelved.
There is a chance that HP is merging Palm’s WebOS with technology that HP already demonstrated in the Slate.
HP had acquired Palm for US$1.2 billion and at the time of acquisition said it would put Palm’s Web OS and mobile OS on a range of devices including tablets.