We blew the lid off the HP press event yesterday, where the acquisition of Palm finally materialized into three webOS devices: HP Veer, HP TouchPad and HP Pre 3. Today, reports have come in suggesting the TouchPad will retail for $699, $100 cheaper than the Motorola Xoom, but still considerably more expensive than the WiFi iPad.
The tablet wars are official. We have RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook, the Motorola Xoom (and other dual-core Android Honeycomb tablets), the HP TouchPad and the unannounced Apple iPad 2. According to BGR, the TouchPad will be priced at $699, with a June 2011 release.
Price of entry is key for the tablet market. With the current generation iPad selling for $499 no contract (WiFi edition), the $799 Motorola Xoom looks to be out of reach for bargain hunters. At $699, the HP TouchPad is better, but still not great. RIM looks to be the only competitor who understands that a basic (and affordable) model of a tablet is essential — pricing their PlayBook at $399 for an 8GB model.
Did HP make the right move pricing the TouchPad at $699?
In related news, precentral.net is reporting the HP TouchPad is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 chipset. With dual cores clocked at 1.2 GHz, paired with an Adreno 220 GPU, the kit is capable of capturing 16 megapixel images and full 1080P stereoscopic 3D playback over HDMI. While the TouchPad does not have 3D capabilities nor a camera anywhere near that level (1.3 megapixel), the chipset looks promising and should yield superb performance.
OMAP5, dozens of high-end tablets and Mobile World Congress approaching — all I can say is wow. Next week looks to be even more intense and Electricpig has you covered.
Via BGR | PreCentral
