Gadgets Blog » Tablets

Just when you thought it was safe to watch Harry Potter on your cell phone, industry experts are saying it’s going to starting hitting you where it counts…in the pocketbook.

Do you remember the days before 3G coverage when we were forced to use tiny screens and actually push buttons and all we could really surf was out e-mail and a few sites designed for mobile Internet browsing. You remember those days? That’s when we actually used the phone to call people.

When 3G hit and phones were able to actually surf the web in its entirety, the game changed and we grew to not only love our new freedoms but also to covet and expect them. Soon, you could watch videos and television shows on the phone all while waiting in line for your groceries.

The major networks spent billions and billions of dollars to upgrade their infrastructure all the while offering unlimited data plans at a relatively cheap price. They made their networks better so we could watch Netflix from our phones and then seemingly paid the bill. Uh, yeah. Not so much.

Today’s headline and gadget sound, in many ways, too good to be true. But it is true, amazingly enough. Here in the United States, those wishing to be early adopters of the upcoming tablet computing trend have only one option: the Apple iPad, which costs the user a pretty penny in both initial cost and data plans.

While other devices are still in development, none has emerged as the front-runner to challenge Apple’s place at the top of the world.

Tablet computers, if they are indeed the future, remain elusive to the market in both the United States and Europe. The high cost of these devices makes them impractical for the average citizen of many other countries in the world. India’s solution? Design a better tablet and sell it for a jaw-dropping price.

The tablet, which was unveiled as a prototype earlier this week, was the child of a joint development between the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. With an estimated retail price of approximately $30 USD (about 1500 Rupees), the tablet is intended to find a home in the Indian education system, providing a computer to everyone from grade schoolers to graduate students.

Today’s top gadget news story is a fairly surprising instance of two for the price of one. As other developers attempt to get products into the market inspired by the Apple iPad, Hewlett Packard seemed to be the best bet for consumers holding out for a PC-oriented tablet computer.

The HP Slate in particular was an impressive model, boasting Windows 7 and offering a series of features that could even make it a solid improvement on the iPad. I was surprised by the announcement that HP canceled the Slate, a serious blow to companies chasing down Apple.

This is the second tablet device that HP has dropped this year, meaning they’ve backed off from both a Windows 7-based model as well as an Android model. So the fact that the second half of our story was the announcement of an HP-copyrighted device known as the PalmPad makes things even more interesting.

With a name that sounds like some sort of mash-up between iPad and Palm Pilot, the device churned up Internet rumors that HP had decided to go with Palm’s Web OS as a tablet operating system instead. This news, undoubtedly, would be fantastic for Palm if it were true.