With all the recent kerfuffle surrounding HP discontinuing the TouchPad and reducing prices to a ridiculously low £89.99, many have forgotten that they were planning to launch a smaller version.
Just weeks before the HP TouchPad ‘Firesale’ began, we heard an interesting rumour about a 7-inch version of the TouchPad, dubbed the ‘TouchPad Go’. The device was even approved by the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S, meaning it was practically ready to go on sale.
Since then HP announced it would be canning the TouchPad, and everyone forgot the Go ever existed. Until just now, as a selection of pictures of this mystery device have popped up on a Chinese web forum.
The pictures show the TouchPad Go from the front, showing us that it looks like a shrunken-down exact replica of its bigger brother, albeit with a 4:3 screen ratio.
There’s also a screenshot (below) of an engineer’s menu which show the specifications of the device. It has (or had) a 1.5GHz processor, 1GB of Samsung RAM, 16GB of SanDisk internal memory, 3G and interestingly an NFC (Near Field Communications) chip.
The mystery owner of the TouchPad Go claims it has the same 1024 x 768 screen resolution as the bigger TouchPad, meaning quality should be much better on the Go.
Unfortunately this is likely to be as much as we’ll know of the HP TouchPad Go Tablet, as the only models ever are pre-production and prototypes. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find one on eBay..