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HP Pre3

By now most are aware of HP's decision to stop making webOS powered hardware but that doesn't mean the webOS community as a whole has given up on webOS devices. Our friends over at Pre Central have completed their review of the long awaited HP Pre 3 and although its story is a tragic one, considering the device many webOS fans have been waiting for will never really have its time to shine -- it's still a good read that tells the tale of what could have been.

In reading the review, it's easy to see that the HP Pre 3 was finally the device many were hoping to have webOS on. A 1.4GHz processor, 480x800 display, 512MB of RAM and the option of 8GB or 16GB for storage, and an auto-focus camera finally made it, at the time of its announcement, state-of-the art. Derek covers his thoughts on the device quite well, despite knowing that it'll never really be fully available to all, so make sure you check it out.

When the BlackBerry PlayBook launched, a lot of people related the look of the BlackBerry Tablet OS to that of webOS and when reading Dereks review, I couldn't help but wonder if what we're seeing in the HP Pre 3 is a small glimmer of what we'll be seeing when QNX BlackBerry devices arrive on the scene.

The "card" metaphor is there, the styling is arguably similar, and some of the specs fall in line with rumors suggested for QNX BlackBerry smartphones so it's becoming increasingly easy to imagine QNX being shrunk down to a BlackBerry. We've seen some fake images pop up, but really RIM will need to play with their UI a little bit more to make it optimized for smaller real estate. For now, I think the HP Pre 3 gives us the best insight as to what QNX may look like. What do you all think -- and more importantly, were any of you all out there waiting on the Pre 3 to give webOS a shot?

Read the full HP Pre 3 Review on Pre Central

The HP TouchPad review [the competition]

 
HP TouchPad

It has been a long year for webOS fans, they've had to watch their beloved Palm brand transition to the hands of HP and for a while there were left wondering what would become of their beautiful OS. They've sat through the launches of the Palm Pre 2 as well as the HP Veer and now, come July 1 they'll be getting their hands on the HP TouchPad.

Over at PreCentral, Derek Kessler has taken the time to write up a Kevin Michaluk sized review of the HP TouchPad and having read through it -- there are quite a few similarities there between the TouchPad and the release of the BlackBerry PlayBook. Both devices, while meeting today's standards for tablet specifications have been met with a lukewarm response. As noted in Derek's review:

The TouchPad’s not a perfect tablet by any stretch of the imagination. It has its faults, but by and large those are correctable missteps, bugs, or omissions on the software front. While no number of software updates can make the TouchPad thinner, lighter, or sprout a rear-facing camera, the hardware is solid and up to the task of whatever you can throw at it. We didn’t even try to break the TouchPad with a Too Many Cards error – we don’t have the patience to figure out how many apps it takes to reach that 1GB RAM ceiling.

While feeling like an OS designed for a tablet, the HP TouchPad at this point still has a few key things missing that are hoped to be corrected through later updates. Sounds a little familiar right? The question of the OS being complete does come up with the consensus being that it could have been a little bit more polished before release.

One key thing HP did try to take care of though was the app selection. In Derek's review he notes that while the HP TouchPad has a system in place to run older third party apps, HP will still have a tough time attracting developers  to their new development platform and apps currently designed to run on the HP TouchPad specifically are limited.

Whether you're just interested in checking out the competition or if you're currently a BlackBerry PlayBook owner looking to see how good the reviews for the HP TouchPad are in comparison to those of the Playbook, I suggest heading on over to PreCentral for the full two-part HP TouchPad review.

HP-RIM

Are you a BES user that has a need to wirelessly print from your BlackBerry? If you said yes, here is something that may be of interest to you. HP ePrint Enterprise is an enterprise-class cloud printing solution that makes it easy to print documents directly from your BlackBerry smartphone. Employees can print to any of their company's network of printers from anywhere in the world.

Join Sridhar Solur, HP Laboratories and Mike Kirkup, Director Developer Ralations, RIM on June 30th at 9:00am PT as they present the free webinar, "Mobile printing strategies for the enterprise: Find out how HP and RIM are making it easy to securely print from BlackBerry smartphones." 

[ part IV - youtube video link for mobile viewing ]

With WES 2010 now well behind us, I figured we'd wind down our BlackBerry Solution Showcase Partner/Sponsor Spotlight with Parts IV and V together. Watch the videos above and below to see first hand what some of the different enterprise and consumer plays that were on hand at the event.

Part IV includes SteelCloud, CytexOne, HP, Case-Mate and NickelBuddy. Part V includes Dream Theme, Shoot It and My Global Talk. Definitely check out Part V - the guy from Shoot It / My Global Talk was such a character we had to call it quits on the tour after that we were laughing so hard. Totally an awesome guy who loves his job! :)

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Luggage

Thankfully we don't travel with steamer trunks anymore. But for business travel we still hump around the country with a travel suitcase AND the coveted laptop bag. With products like the Blackberry Presenter we dare to dream that we can travel without the laptop.

It's great that the laptop isn't needed to do PowerPoint presentations but there are times when printing documents on the go still require a laptop. Well now RIM, FedEx, and Hilton have joined forces with HP to enable the Enterprise Blackberry user more laptop independent. Hit the jump for the full release. 

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 21, 2010 - HP today announced a new services delivery platform - the HP MPS Smart Decision Suite - that enables customers to better analyse, report and predict the use of their imaging and printing devices through an HP Managed Print Services (MPS) engagement.

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