When the new HP TouchPad joins the Motorola Xoom and
in hitting the market, we'll have three really serious challengers to the
.
And, perhaps most interestingly, all will be running different operating systems. So let's compare how the three newcomers stack up against the hottest tablet yet released.
In terms of releases, Motorola won't say anything about the Xoom's UK release date, though it is pencilled in for the first quarter of 2011 in the US. However, it depends on when Google is planning on getting Honeycomb out the door. Likewise we should be seeing the PlayBook arrive in the Spring or early Summer. But HP has been a little more coy and we could even see the HP TouchPad arrive in the autumn.
And, of course, we're also expecting iPad 2, so we'll be updating this piece when we know more about that new device.
OS
This is the biggest difference between the four tablets. The iPad runs Apple's own iOS, the Moto Xoom Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the BlackBerry PlayBook runs RIM's own Tablet OS and likewise the new HP TouchPad also has a bespoke OS. The Touchpad will run Palm's webOS, first developed by Palm - who HP then bought. The tablet will run webOS 3.0.
WEBOS: HP bought Palm and is now taking full advantage of its webOS platform
The Motorola Xoom was the main unit used to demo Android 3.0 Honeycomb at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, though we only saw videos of OS features running on the new device.
