HP finally had it's big WebOS event today. I do mean big because it showcased a number of products and lasted over two hours. As predicted here on Mobilified, HP introduced a tablet and two smartphones. Their (first) WebOS tablet is named the TouchPad and their two new phones are the Pre 3 and the Veer, respectively. The Pre 3 is very much a larger, faster sucessor to the Pre and the Pre 2, while the Veer carries on the legacy of the Pixi as a tiny phone, though with its new portrait-slider orientation it is more of a miniature Pre. HP also spoke about the future of WebOS and how it fits into their overall corporate strategy. This strategy apparently includes putting WebOS on printers and even PC's. HP has already posted the video of the event here.
It seems clear that the bulk of the time and effort went into developing the Touchpad. Since the introduction of both WebOS and Apple's iPad, it was incredibly obvious that WebOS would scale beautifully to a tablet. It wasn't just pundits making the case either, since RIM decided to essentially steal the interface for their upcoming Blackberry Playbook. There isn't a ton that can be said about the Touchpad, though, because the experience is almost exactly as one might have imagined on a larger screen. If you're familiar with WebOS, or read our review of the Pre 2 and WebOS 2.0, then you know what the basic operation of this device is.
On the TouchPad, HP made some very smart decisions. For starters, they are using a screen with the same 1024 x 768 resolution as the iPad. Rather than a move to copy Apple, this was a choice to help their platform, since they will be able to leverage their Plug-in Developer Kit that makes it easy for developers to port apps from iOS to WebOS. On the Pre, this PDK resulted in a disproportionately high number of quality WebOS games. While there is more to a platform than just games, there's no question that games are an important part of the iPad's appeal. Copying the screen resolution is just the first part of a larger strategy to convince developers to put in the little extra time to bring their apps to WebOS. Individual apps and notifications are redesigned and rethought for the Touchpad, showing that HP put more thought into its design than to throw a phone OS onto the tablet (see: Samsung Galaxy Tab).
What is a little disappointing to see on the TouchPad is that HP chose to eliminate the WebOS gesture area. Instead of an area dedicated to swiping and performing various actions, they simply retained the singular capacitive button to navigate throughout the OS. This may have been a compromise, since people tend to hold tablets in all four orientations, meaning that they would have had to build gesture areas around all four sides of the bezel. It would have been nice to see them attempt that, rather than take functionality away from their tablet. It remains to be seen if navigating will be as desirable without a swipe up to bring up the launcher or a right-to-left swipe to go back.
Still, the biggest disappointment of the day has to be a toss-up between the projected summer launch dates or the phones HP unveiled. The Pre 3 is simply a faster, bigger version of the Pre, although to their credit those happen to be the qualities most sorely needed. The listed 1.4 GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor should prove to be exceptionally fast, given that the current Pre 2 runs quick on a less-desirable 1GHz OMAP processor from Texas Instruments. Even by summer, performance won't be an issue for the Pre 3. What will be an issue is a completely uninspired design that looks almost exactly the same as the original Pre. In fact, despite the fact that the screen is significantly larger (3.6" vs. 3.1"), it practically looks like the same phone in pictures. The over-reliance on these particular grades of plastic is starting to get old. What's more, even though Palm has identified keyboards as a differentiator, it's still hard to believe that they wouldn't try putting out a slimmer, slate-style phone. While the portrait-slider form factor has ardent supporters, it's not one that has proven itself in the market yet. It's also a concern that the new Pre 3 is less than a millimeter thinner than the original Pre. Ultimately, the Pre 3 looks dated, which is hardly a way to jump back into the waters in the summer of 2011.
What's even more perplexing is the decision to make the Veer a portrait-slider. HP seemed obsessed with making this phone the smallest anyone had ever seen, but this is not a revolutionary design. For starters, as Engadget has already observed, the Veer is actually a successor to the Pixi. While performance looked astronomically improved, the screen size is the same (2.8"), begging the question, why did this have to morph into a slider? The Pixi's keyboard is beyond tiny, but many people thought it was superior to the original Pre's because the keys were raised and very clicky. By making this a sliding keyboard, HP may have just taken the worst of both worlds, the size of the Pixi keyboard and the rubberiness of the Pre keyboard, and combined them. What's more, if you have room to have a keyboard exposed, why force onto your consumers the extra action of sliding it open, and why make your phone thicker in doing so? It doesn't seem to make any sense, other than to say you have a postage stamp-sized phone.
While the TouchPad has the best opportunity to make an impact in the still-nacent tablet market, it's a mistake for HP to not make their smartphones the focal point in their strategy. Setting aside the fact that the phone market is much larger and guaranteed to grow more, any ecosystem play should start with the phone first. While it's great that HP will take WebOS and put it on both printers and PC's, the smartphone is fast becoming the center of most people's computing experience. The Pre 3 will be competitive in performance when its released, but will it be competitive in the market? Will customers view its dated industrial design and relative thickness as competitive? That remains to be seen, and more than just the Pre 3's fate is riding on that contingency.