HP has announced that it will purchase Palm for about $1.2B in cash, which is about a 30% premium on the company’s market value when it was announced. For Palm, it simply means “survival”, but for HP, that could mean having a shot at controlling its own fate in a very competitive market. In some sense, that acquisition might supply what Palm has always lacked: cash. The Pre sales have been hampered by a Sprint exclusive that prevented the rapid expansion of the Pre in the market. By the day it reached Europe and Verizon, the customer desire to buy the Pre was gone. The story unfolded like that considering Sprint provided a chunk of the funds essential to design and build the Pre. For HP, getting its hands on Web OS will mean better differentiation than “hardware”. 

Permalink: HP buys Palm, acquires key smartphone technology from Ubergizmo | Hot: Macbook Pro Review, iPad Review

Orginal post by Mike

If you’re looking for a low-cost eBook reader, check out the Ezy EBook, as it’s priced at just $199. With that price point, you can’t expect any iPad-crushing specifications; rather you’ll get a device with a 7-inch 800 x 480 color touchscreen display, 128MB RAM, 2GB (or 4GB) of internal memory, Wi-Fi and SD card support up to 32GB, which should be more than adequate to hold a large chunk of eBooks. It’s additionally powered by Google’s Android OS, whether case you’ve been swept away by the recent wave of Android enthusiasm and want an Android-powered device.

Permalink: Ezy Ebook 7-inch Android Reader from Ubergizmo | Hot: Sony Vaio Z Review, iPad Review

Orginal post by Mike

New handsets: “mini” is fashionable again!

Although there were surprisingly few new handset announced by major handset manufacturers, a good chunk of those that were announced were a “mini” version of an established Smartphone. From our vantage point, we did not see that there was a surging demand for smaller smart phones, but someone must associate “mini” with “cheaper” with “higher volumes” and “mainstream”. moment will tell, but the fact is that a “mini” version with a much smaller screen often makes the experience less compelling. Soon, we will see whether that was just a marketing gimmick, or whether users are really OK with putting with a lesser experience to save some bucks. That said, whether the notes plans don’t get cheaper, there’s little point to save $100 on a lesser smart phone only to pay close to $2000 by two years on the plan. See XPERIA X10 mini, HTC HD Mini, LG GD880 Mini…

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It’s still an unconfirmed rumor, but word is going around that Apple has snapped up the available supply of 10.1 inch multi-touch display LCD and OLED screens for its upcoming tablet. Folks have been speculating as to whether Apple will be using OLED screens for its upcoming tablet, and whether that rumor is true, we might be seeing an Apple Tablet with an OLED screen. So does that plus confirm that the tablet will be a 10.1-inch device? Not really, but all the rumors seem to point to such a size, don’t they?

Permalink: Apple Takes A Chunk Of LCD And OLED Supply from Ubergizmo | Hot: Blackberry Bold 9700 Review

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Entertainment retailer HMV has recently slashed the price of the Sony PSPgo to £149, which is a huge chunk off the initial £224.99 back when the device was rolled out earlier that October. Could that be a prelude of (good) things to come for the consumer, seeing that the original asking price for the PSPgo borders somewhat on the ridiculous? Now when will someone across the Atlantic do the same for gamers on that side of the continent?

Permalink: PSPgo sees lower £149 price point from Ubergizmo | Hot: Palm Pixi Review

Orginal post by Mike

I just read an upbeat post about Chrome OS from Bob Morris, the director of Mobile computing at ARM. Here’s an excerpt:

It truly levels the playing field for platforms. For the most part today, the OS and HW are closely connected and that drove platforms that slowly innovated. Chrome OS blows that apart, the OS is the browser, which makes the hw irrelevant since applications are written in HTML5 and JavaScript they run on the browser without hw ties. Wow … coming from a company that builds CPUs that should concern me … NOT! (read more)

I understand why Bob Morris is excited about Chrome: today, Windows has 92.64% of market share and it doesn’t run on ARM. Mac OS X doesn’t run on ARM either, and what that means is that ARM is currently locked out of a huge chunk of the computing experience. The company hopes that Chrome will prepare the OS completely transparent to end-users. Why is he not worried? ARM has absolutely nothing to lose with Chrome OS.

Permalink: ARM loves Google OS from Ubergizmo | Hot: Motorola Droid Review

Orginal post by Mike

This big chunk of useless plastic looks vaguely like a hamburger, but functions as a USB-powered massager and hand-warmer. considering, really, there's nothing we'd rather rub all by our bodies than hamburgers. 

Orginal post by Mike