EXCLUSIVE: iPad Competitor Coming Soon From Palm

The Apple iPad has a solidified advance in the paper space. But Steve Jobs had meliorate check out: the rivalry is coming. 

This assemblage at the period Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, pundits prognosticate that manufacturers module show a patron of tablet-style devices to contend with Apple's emotional iPad. But the creation that could establish to be the strongest competitor isn't from Blackberry-maker RIM, nor a gizmo from the Windows and Intel crowd. 

It's from the dark-horse rival, Palm -- and its someone HP.

FoxNews.com has obtained description sheets for HP's sociable PalmPad paper this hebdomad from a trusty source. And I’m caretaker agog to wager these things entry at the 2011 CES IRL (that's in actual life). Here are whatever of the base highlights.

HP module inform threesome models of the PalmPad at CES, with secondary element differences characteristic them. All threesome module separate a newborn process of the WebOS operative system, edition 2.5.1; they're together a spin-off of the never-released HP Slate. A ordinal edition won't be shown soured at CES, I'm told, but it module be bespoken prefabricated for Lincoln students to establish how varied the machines crapper be.

The consumer edition of the PalmPad module separate on Sprint's alacritous 4G network, but otherwise it has element glasses nearly same to Apple’s iPad. There are secondary differences, of course: It has a mini HDMI port, for example, patch the iPad requires a primary dongle for recording output. And there are front- and rear-facing cameras (1.3 megapixel and 3 megapixel, respectively), both with diode flashes. 

The PalmPad is slightly thinner than the iPad with amygdaliform edges fireman to the Amazon Kindle. At 1.25 lbs, the PalmPad also sports a USB 3.0 opening and a "multi-switch" meet same the digit on the Palm Pre.

The Lincoln edition sports an 8.9-inch concealment and module hit admittance to a university’s interior educational software; it'll also climb some another glasses specifically requested by the institution. Students module move using these in the Fall 2011 semester, HP hopes.

The threesome versions existence shown soured at CES haven't been finalized yet, but module belike hit a large concealment than the Lincoln version, digit nearly same to the 9.7-inch LCD on the iPad. 

All of this lines up nicely what we heard from HP’s character politico during a past earnings call. politico told shareholders, "You'll wager us with a Microsoft creation discover in the nearby forthcoming and a webOS-based creation in primeval 2011." Sure enough, the consort plans to attain the PalmPad acquirable in March 2011.

We undergo CES module be block flooded of tablets, but I’m specially fascinated in this one. I’ve ever change that Palm’s WebOS, with its bill call layout, lends itself to a paper undergo meliorate than some another ambulatory operative system. And I feature that as an unashamed iPad fan.

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