14 DAY TRIAL // The tablet market has definitely been evolving rapidly, especially now that the Android 3.0 OS is on the loose, although it appears that two models made by HP are going to make it to market a bit later than some may like.
The 2011 editions of CeBIT and MWC (Mobile World Congress) saw the arrival of quite a few tablet PCs, many of which used an ARM platform (NVIDIA Tegra 2 especially) and the Android 3.0 OS.
Otherwise known as Honeycomb, the operating system is the version of Android that was specifically designed for slates and is more or less standard on all non-iPad models nowadays.
Speaking of the iPad, it is its newest incarnation that is actualy giving trouble to notebook makers, since their slates were caught by surprise.
Basically, iPad 2 came out a bit sooner than expected and even has a thinner form factor and smaller price to boot.
That said, companies are doing their best to make sure their own inventions are competitive, and HP seems to be especially careful with the Touchpad and a new webOS-loaded model of 7 inches.
HP is one of the few companies that chose to use a different operating system than the Android, understandable considering that it has its own such software ever since buying Palm, last year.
To be more specific, a document found by PreCentral implies that a 7-inch webOS model, HP Opal, will be launched in September, although its price and hardware, except for the likely size of 180 x 144 x 13 mm and resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixels (probably), is unknown for now.
Fortunately, the 9.7-inch HP Touchpad is not as bereft of description, although it is understandable, considering that it was listed on Amazon a while ago.
Regardless, There should be two versions up for sale when availability ramps up, in June, one at $499 and one at $599. The difference between them is that the former had 16 GB of NAND Flash storage, while the latter has 32 GB.