14 DAY TRIAL // This year was said to be dominated by the tablet PC segment of the market and some more info on two such devices, the HP/Palm webOS-based tablet PCs, has just emerged.
No official announcement was made until now, but these tablets already made an appearance into the wild, sporting the codenames of 'Topaz' and 'Opal'.
Expected to arrive on the market later during the ongoing year, these devices were rumored to pack 1.2GHz application processors, while boasting touchscreen displays of 9 and 7 inches, respectively.
Following yesterday's leak, Engadget came up with some more info on these devices, including the fact that Opal might be shorter than Samsung's Galaxy Tab, measuring 180 x 144 x 13mm (as opposed to 190.1 x 120.5 x 12-mm on the already available device).
At the same time, the tablet PC is expected to include a TFT LCD display capable of delivering a 1,024 x 768 pixel resolution.
As for the larger tablet PC, the Topaz, rumor has it that it would measure 241 x 190 x 13mm (close to the Apple iPad, which measures 242.8 x 189.7 x 13.4 mm), while boasting a pixel resolution similar to the one on Opal.
Among the other possible specs of these devices, we can count the inclusion of HP Synergy, or the Touchstone wireless charging dock, which is already present with other webOS devices from the company, and which was somehow confirmed for the tablet PCs too.
This info comes from a survey that a GfK Custom Research North America has conducted not too long ago, and which mentions them, although it does not name HP or Palm.
Apparently, the survey also mentions Flash support, Phone-to-Tablet communication, access to music library via WiFi or 3G data connections, or multitasking, all of which are expected to become features of the upcoming webOS tablet PCs from HP/Palm.
'Tap-to-Share' is also mentioned, a feature that should enable users easily transfer files, musicc or web links from the phone to the tablet.
Moreover, HP is expected to provide users of a webOS device with an impressive amount of cloud storage, so that one would keep apps, app states, and saved documents safe into the cloud.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that webOS won't land on shelves only on tablet PC, but that smartphones are also expected to be released in the near future, though specific info on these devices lacks at the moment.