Have No Fear, The 7-inch HP TouchPad Go Is Almost Here!

Never mind the marketplace is having a hard time selling the first TouchPad. Never mind that it has a fraction of the apps found on competing platforms. Never mind that it works best when paired with the least popular smartphone. HP is prepping a new TouchPad for an US launch. The TouchPad Go is a 7-inch tablet from the same strain the produced the original. Oh goodie.

This might not be the first you’re hearing of it. A smaller TouchPad was rumored alongside the first one. Back then, it was thought to have been called internally as the Opal. But then the device hit the FCC where the Go moniker was found.

Per the FCC docs, the tablet is much of what you’d expect: 16 and 32GB models, both available in 3G and WiFi-only flavors. The new model will actually pack a faster CPU with a 1.5GHz clockspeed rather than 1.2GHz. GPS, Bluetooth and likely Beats Audio are also packed into the smaller chassis.

Interestingly enough, the FCC docs do not talk of screen size. However, per the FCC rules, HP had to include the device’s ID label on a schematic exactly as it’s found on the real device. A webOSroundup forum member then took that label and used some middle school math to determine that, yes, this is a 7-inch tablet.

Joking aside, a smaller TouchPad, as long as it’s priced right, might do just fine among the webOS loyalists. The TouchPad is a fine device, but the initial high MSRP made it a hard sell. Now that the price is lower, first adopters are probably more interested. Hopefully HP learned its lesson and will price the smaller TouchPad more aggressively. No word on the exact release date, but since it just passed through the FCC, it will likely be within a few months.