While we’re waiting for HP to launch a slate PC running WebOS, Windows 7, or pretty much anything but Android, a new product has shown up at the FCC which looks an awful lot like… and HP slate of some sort. It’s called the HP eStation Zeen, and that’s virtually all we know for certian at the moment.
There’s no official word on the screen size, processor, or operating system. And the folks at Engadget are reporting that it could be a glorified eReader as well as a display panel that can be used to control an HP printer. Some tipsters are reportedly saying that early versions of the Zeen ran Google Android, but it seems likely that HP would ship the OS to WebOS before releasing this product… whatever it is.
There are no words on the processors actually. It would be an AMD?
How about Meego on a Zeen for the clunky name win! (Looking forward to Meego, though)
Update from Engadget:
Update: This is crazy, but we’ve now gotten multiple tips claiming that the Zeen is actually an Android-based tablet with e-reader functionality that can also dock with an HP printer and become its interface. E-reading, Zeen, magazine — get it? Based on HP’s repeated previous statements about webOS hitting printers and tablets, we’d assume the Zeen has since been shifted over to Palm’s OS, but we can’t be sure, as that would undoubtedly add development time and we’re told this thing has been kicking around for months.
Whatever this is, it appears HP still has some work to do: one of our sources described the Android-based prototype as feeling like a “brick” and being “extremely unpolished” with poor battery life. It’s also been pointed out in comments that the CQ in the product number typically indicates a Compaq device, so that could eventually be the branding. We’ll see what’s real soon enough, we suppose.