HP debuted a family of tablets Thursday, all part of an effort to unseat Apple’s iPad from the marquee spot in the tablet market.
Top billing in the lineup goes to the TouchPad, a 9.7-inch tablet running on the webOS mobile operating system, which HP acquired last summer in its $1.2 billion purchase of handheld device pioneer Palm. Pricing and other details will be announced later.
“TouchPad has plenty of horsepower to ensure a great multitasking experience, whether you’re using it for work or play (or both at the same time),” wrote Jon Zilber, announcing the tablet on the company blog.
The world’s largest technology company also announced new webOS smartphones, the “Veer” and the “Pre3.”
About the size of a credit card, the Veer sports a slide-out keyboard, full multimedia capabilities, built-in mobile hotspot functionality, and a nifty magnetic connector, Zilber explained. It carries 8 GB of storage and the same memory as the Pre 2.
The Pre3 bumps up keyboard size and the display resolution, adds video stabilization, a 1.4-GHz Qualcomm processor, and a forward-facing camera for video calling.
WebOS is widely viewed as a strong platform, but HP faces an uphill battle to gain traction in the mobile market, Reuters reported. Its products are arriving late to a market already crawling with competition from Apple and devices based on Google’s Android.