HP webOS tablet to be called the Palmpad, ship with a digital pen?

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According to a USPTO document, HP has recently submitted a trademark application for the term “Palmpad”, a moniker that would be fitting for its first attempt at a webOS tablet. The application form lists the target goods/services as “Computers, computer hardware, computer software, computer peripherals, portable computers, handheld and mobile computers, PDAs, electronic notepads, mobile digital electronic devices”, a category of devices that describes a tablet to a tee. Another circulating rumor suggests that this “Palmpad” may ship with a capacitive touchscreen that supports digital pen input. A carryover from HP’s popular lineup of TabletPCs and Palm’s PalmPilot devices, this pen input would serve to set the webOS tablet apart from its primary competitor, the iPad. Anyone interested heightened by the possibility of inking or perhaps even graffiti on this rumored webOS tablet?

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32 Comments
  • Jake

    If you see a pen they blew it.
    I welcome the idea of a real tablet possibly with flash, actual multi-tasking ability on a wonderful OS, let’s see what hewlett-palm can do.

  • rsox

    First!!! It will suck

    • bonesb

      Can’t hit “-” fast enough.

    • acquaz10

      You sir, failed massively.

      • sirpaul

        You failed almost just as much for using the phrase “You sir, …..”. It is one of the stupidest, worst sounding and cliched phrases I have ever heard.

      • http://kvirtanen.deviantart.com Kimmo

        You said it, Sir Paul.

  • Tdot34

    As long as it is touch screen as well, and don’t need a stylus it will be okay I guess. A stylus is pretty redundant on a device as big as an iPad. Fingers work fine.

    Oh and please, please! change the name. PalmPad sounds as bad or perhaps worse than iPad.

    • http://n/a Nick-Nick

      It is not just bad. This means that these guys have no their own ideas and DESPERATELY trying to catch up the market. Poor things.

    • Steel

      A stylus isn’t redundant, it simply makes actual note-taking and drawing possible. You know, activities one would assume were possible on another product with “Pad” in its name; but they aren’t.

  • Eric

    Do companies thing “pad” sounds better than “tablet”? Maybe they are afraid of people compared to the tablet failures of the past? I kind of liked ‘slate’, but that is just me.

    I wish Palm luck, but I have my doubts. It better work as well as the iPad with fingers and the stylus is just for fine point stuff. If it is primarily stylus driven I think it will be a failure.

    Personally, I am holding out for v2 of the iPad (since I think iPad v1 was a big tease and it isn’t innovation when you release a 10″ iPod Touch). I like Apple, but I think they could have done so much more with the iPad.

    Hopefully the Android tablets that are coming will be cool. I am an equal opportunity buyer. I don’t focus in on just one company. I will buy from the company that puts out the best product.

    • Mike Caine

      Doean’t that mean buying two or more sets of apps though? I’ve spend a fair bit on Apple apps over the years and wouldn’y fancy running another mobile OS in tandem

      • Greed is Good

        iPhone apps look like complete garbage on iPads so you’ll end up having to buy iPad versions of your apps when they are available anyway. I was very disappointed in this fact as I had a number of apps leftover from when I had an iPhone that I wanted to try on the iPad I used to have.

        They ended up looking like pixellated garbage if you used them in 2x mode… ridiculously widget-barren on such an enormous display since iPhone apps are simple and designed for a tiny low-resolution screen. The only way I could see iPhone apps being useful on an iPad is if they added a windowing interface to it and let you use the iPhone apps as widgets/gadgets that you can resize and pin to the background, resize foreground windows and so forth. Hopefully that’ll be in iPad OS 5.

      • John Barker

        Not entirely true. A lot of the apps are hybrid (as in they’re bundled as both an iPad and iPhone app).

  • Joe c.

    I was just playing with my palm vii the other day and realized how much I missed a stylus! After that, I turned on my rf Gun at work thought, “maybe win mo is the way to go”. They too, use a stylus. When I got home, I busted out my Sony clié. Monochrome is all one reAlly needs.

    If hp releases a tablet with a pen, they will have erased years of progress in getting away from that crap. People have realized, no matter how “intuitive” an input method is, a real or virtual keyboard trumps it, period.

    I do own, and love, my palm vii and Sony clié. If apple had an antenna like the vii, life would be much better for all!

  • Dan

    @rsox,

    umm… if you hadn’t noticed, you obviously werent first. troll.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • Mike

    whoa whoa whoa with the stylus hate!
    I want something to replace the goddamn notebooks I carry around!

    I still find it remarkable that in 2010 no one has come up with a decent electronic notebook.

  • Matt

    Need Stylus for taking Math Notes and doing Homework. The mess of papers is killing me. not to mention organization is so much better on a computer.

  • DaHarder

    This is looking pretty promising… So Far

    • sirpaul

      lol…what exactly is looking good? So far all that has been said is that it the name Palmpad is being registered and that there is a RUMOUR that it may use ePen input…

  • webostek

    stylus WITH multi-touch screen will work well for graphic artists and business. spray painting with a mouse or finger is terrible; but a stylus with a pressure sensitive tip will be appealing for broadcast quality designers who need the pinpoint accuracy. palmpad already sounds promising with more features compared to the iPad.

  • SF

    Is it coming this year?

  • sirpaul

    If it has USB ports and SD slot, 3G connectivity and PC-like features…well, that would just be awesome. The iPad, though pretty cool, doesn’t have enough capabilities to merit the large price.

  • http://twitter.com/jaymonster JayMonster

    capacitive WITH Stylus could make this a major win for a business based product! While the main interface should ( and most likely will) be touch controlled like the Pre, having a stylus will allow finer control for drawing (think drawing or highlighting on a presentation slide) and/or signature capture. There are definitely some tasks that having a stylus to *compliment* a touch interface that will give developers and users abilities you can only wish for in a complete touch interface. Think outside the box (or apple crate as the case might be) and suddenly just mentioning the word stylus with a tablet ( or” pad”) is not an automatic reason to pre-judge the product a failure.

  • http://www.indiamaphosting.com/ Chethan Kashyap

    At last, iPhone and iPad can expect some competition in hand-held devices market.

    I guess, in future, HP might be thinking of creating its own OS of its own for its PC’s, Notebooks, Netbooks, Tablet PC’s and other mobile devices in its products range based on webOS developed by Palm.

    Only time can answer it. Lets wait and see.

  • epicphail

    if it is a touch tablet that can use a pen as well, that would be perfect. a fully digital replacement 8.5 x 11 paper would be amazing for students, business, and law (11×14 for them)…then add in wifi, 3g/4g, micro sd, solid web browsing, a book reader, multi-media including flash and you have a winner. too bad people are too invested in apple’s app store. oh well, apple had the lead on the home computer market until big blue got involved. steve jobs was flying pretty high back then, too.

  • chad

    love webos. Can’t wait to see what hp comes up with. Still though, a official virtual keyboard is required which webos is still miraculously lacking. I’m excited for this device.

  • chad

    I love webos. Can’t wait to see what hp comes up with. Still though, a official virtual keyboard is required which webos is still miraculously lacking. I’m excited for this device.

  • burnet

    It better be priced significantly beneath the iPad and offer more. I dont see how Palm and HP will be able to compete unless they take a page from Hyundai’s play book of more for LE$$.

  • http://buyplaystationmoveonline.com/ buy playstation move

    I’ll wait for seeing it.

  • http://www.ryanpmaier.com Ryan Maier

    This would be awesome. Not sure how I feel about the pen though.

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