HP is Planning Six New Palm Devices for 2011
HP and Palm are going to have a busy year in 2011.
Palm's WebOS has gotten off to a rather slow start. Launched in January of 2009, Palm has released just a handful of phones running the mobile OS and one could argue that the Pre, Pixi, and the Plus variations of both are all a bit same old, same old. The Pre 2 has just been announced and though it will ship with WebOS 2, many were disappointed to learn that looks almost identical to its predecessor.
However, Palm fans could have a very exciting year ahead of them if the most recent reports out of China are to be believed. CENS.com reports that both Foxconn and Compal have landed contract orders from HP for Palm devices. The China-based website cites 'informed sources' that say Foxconn has been contracted to deliver four or five new phones for sale in 2011, while Compal is also contracted for an additional device.
Given HP's commitment to put WebOS on tons of small form factor devices, it's no surprise to hear the company is planning half a dozen WebOS devices for 2011 alone. However, it'll be interesting to see if these will be smartphones or other mobile devices, like tablets and MIDs.
Source: CENS.com via Precentral
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Way way way too late to the party. Windows Phone has a killer UI, Zune/Xbox entertainment, business support going for it; Android gives the user a ton of choices and apps and is poised for market dominance, iPhone has its image and a ton of apps, and Blackberry has its entrenched business users.
Palm wont match Windows user experience, Androids freedom of choice, and it wont have Apple's image with consumers, or Blackberry's image with business. So I am betting HP just made a huge mistake buying Palm.
We'll I'm *relatively* happy with my Palm Pixi on Sprint. WebOS is honestly fucking amazing and dare I say, fun to use? The hardware side of things however is a whole other story.. sadly. My first Pixi had a frozen red pixel in the middle, exchanged it for a new one. And now on this one the plastic screen is slowly coming off and fine particulates have gotten through the gaps and under the screen and have invaded the lower right hand corner of my viewing experience with pesky little black specs. The touchstone though is so cool and convenient. I would give the phone a 3.5/5. If Palm..ahem, I mean 'HP Palm' really knocks the hardware and build quality out of the park I'll be completely sold. Here's hoping it's not just going to be half a dozen plastic toys *finger crossed*
The problem w/ Palm's WebOS devices to date has never been the OS itself, but the sub-par hardware that it was on. I think most people who have used all the major mobile OSes and WebOS would tell you WebOS does multi-tasking as well as, if not better than, Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Windows Mobile.
As for the "disappointing" Palm Pre 2, Palm/HP had tons of unused Pres that weren't selling, so they put in better processors and more RAM just to run out the supply. In addition, you can't expect a completely new device designed from the ground-up 3 months after the buy-out and, let's face it, Palm didn't have the money to be engineering a brand new device prior to the sale to HP, so that's what it would have had to have been. Outside of the keyboard on the Pre, which is average to frustrating, depending on the size of your thumbs, everything else is pretty decent now that the processor and RAM have been upgraded to competitive specs for an entry-level smartphone. I love the form factor of the Pre; it fits well in a shirt pocket unlike most smartphones.
If the specs are still not on par with current technology, HP will be making many more mistakes...
Why would anyone buy this device? The carriers have to give them away. Two fers.... Three fers... Palm came way too late to the party and cant keep up with the big dogs. They are eating a lot of humble pie. Why in the world would HP pay $1.2B for Palm? If you ask me, HP overpaid by $1B. Someone is going to lose their job over this incredible screw up.
I'm so disappointed with Palm. They were once at the top of this game, but lacked innovation. I remember having my Palm 650 and after 2 years, the new Palm 700p ran the same OS and wasn't much better than my 650. It's like they were just stagnant. Then came WebOS, but by then most Palm fans had moved on and were no longer interested.
Maybe they will have an app for facebook called FacePalm
Thanks, but no thanks. I'd take WP7 over webOS2.
Why would anyone buy this device? The carriers have to give them away. Two fers.... Three fers... Palm came way too late to the party and cant keep up with the big dogs. They are eating a lot of humble pie. Why in the world would HP pay $1.2B for Palm? If you ask me, HP overpaid by $1B. Someone is going to lose their job over this incredible screw up.
someone already did!!!
Mr hurt.. Mark Hurt if I am correct
Read my words and remember them:
webOS is the second best OS. It's second to iOS. Android is only as successful as it is because it is THE only alternative to iOS right now. Android is a shady OS that also offers shady apps. They are susessful because they have ENOUGH crummy apps. webOS is almost as simple and polished as iOS. The only thing that hoes it back is that palm has changed from one owner to next so there has been a learning curve to over come and a plan to build for the OS. The other problem is a major one and that's the fact that they have no apps to compete against apple. Once they build up developer support, this OS will compete with APPLE like no other.
I have no problem giving HP/ Palm time (I have a Pre Plus) while they focus on the hardware/ basic functions IF they would wake up and start by reviewing where Palm WAS with the Treo when they unceremoniously dumped the devices and OS. The smart move would have been to START WebOS and the Pre with AT LEAST the same functionality as the last Treo. Unfortunately, limited backward compatibility (requiring a 3rd party app), a lesser keyboard, far more limited features and functions in almost all areas (calendar/ alarm/ email/ etc.) hobbled by lack of obviously expected options such as mass delete, better sorting, finer control, no on-screen keyboard or voice command/dialing, etc. HOWEVER, these should all be easily corrected and, if the device were to receive some basic upgrades, truly would be a better alternative to many phones. Despite the slam to Android, and I agree as far as business/ productivity apps it is very weak, it DOES have the power of Google behind it which means much more integration and availability with Google applications as well as some really cool user apps not available on WebOS (yet). I'll stick with Palm/ HP for a while longer--but it does look like if they want to stay in the phone market.. they had better make their line "grow up" so that they can compete with the adult players in the market.