News - HP is readying an Android tablet, with smartphones to follow?

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Hewlett Packard looks like it’s going to have another bash at the post-PC market.

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Fond memories of the iPAQ, shame they didn't keep up with it or they could have been a big player now

Indeed, still have my old ipaq kicking around and it was a good device for the time (mine had both CF and SD card slots :o). They ended up being out-manoeuvered by HTC and other in the WinMobile market though: didn't react quickly enough to the early WinMob smartphones (loved my Orange SPV M600) so basically were producing products that were smartphones without the phone. Then Apple realeased the iPhone and made smartphones trendy, and WinMob - and HP's PDA business - died surprisingly quickly.

It was a shame to see it ditch WebOS so farcically as well - was a really messed up time for HP. Be interesting to see if they can make a real go of the mobile market this time round - and how they will try to distinguish themselves from the masses...

I suspect they will find they are too late to the party.

I reckon they could do well by making some business friendly ones, maybe with something like the dual-profile thing the new Blackberrys. Businesses could then give out an encrypted/remote-wipeable managed locked down profile for work, and a separate free-for-all for personal use.

However I suspect they'll just chuck out yet another me-too offering and hope the HP brandname will sell it.

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Originally Posted by wasabi

I suspect they'll just chuck out yet another me-too offering

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...at the same price as an ipad, and not as good

I think they could do a good job of it hardware-wise, they just have to be careful about putting bloatware on and making sure they get updates out promptly.

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Originally Posted by bobharvey

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Originally Posted by wasabi

I suspect they'll just chuck out yet another me-too offering

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...at the same price as an ipad, and not as good

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probably, but lets wait in hope of something better

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Originally Posted by bobharvey

(I suspect they'll just chuck out yet another me-too offering)...at the same price as an ipad, and not as good

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I'm not so sure - after all their Mac Book competitors are cheaper (not by much admittedly). And as to the me-too factor, I'd suggest that with all the competition in 'droid tablets it'd be difficult to do something innovative that wasn't just software tweaks. That said, I'm going to agree with wasabi's opinion that the Droid Pad (or whatever they call it) will probably be heavily tailored for business use.

No, I'll suggest that the real competition isn't the iPad, but more likely devices from Samsung and Asus - plus I really don't see what the big whoop is about the iPad. Last one I tried wasn't any better than the Note 10.1 I have at home (which was significantly cheaper!), and in fact in some respects the old Note 10.1 was superior. Sound quality being one area for a start.

Oh, and there's already twoHP Android tablets in my house - admittedly they are repurposed Touchpads that I got in the firesale, but nevertheless they're actually pretty decent devices.

PS, if they do a smartphone then they're off their flickin' 'eads - market's already saturated imho.