The HP TouchPad that goes on sale next week features a 9.7 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display. But according to Taiwan Economic News, HP may already be looking beyond that form factor.
HP has reportedly placed orders with Taiwanese equipment manufacturer Inventec for a 7 inch model which is expected to launch in August. That’s according to an HP subcontractor.
The report also suggests that HP has orders in place to produce more than 400,000 units of the 9.7 inch Touchpad per month. That doesn’t mean the company will actually sell that money, but it’s clear that HP is hoping to there’s enough demand for its new webOS tablet to move a few million units by the end of the year.
That sound kind of ambitious given the limited success of the webOS platform in the smartphone space. But HP is working to expand webOS to run on tablets, computers, and even printers as well as smartphones. Tablets are just the first step in that plan. I guess we’ll have to see whether they’re also the last.
via BGR
The non-Apple tablet/slate manufacturers are making it very easy to hold on to the $500 burning a hole in my pocket. Seems like every week one of them effectively says, “Why buy now when we’ll be pushing out a major product update in a couple months?” Apple at least has the sense to be secretive (if not a bit slimy) about what product is coming when.