HP prepping cloud music-syncing for TouchPad launch

By Adam Rosenberg April 17, 2011

The clouds continue to roll in. While questions still swirl as to how Apple and Google will respond to Amazon‘s recently launched Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services, details are starting to emerge about other competitors’ plans in the remote user storage arena. Today brings word that Hewlett-Packard will be using cloud servers for music storage when its webOS-powered HP TouchPad tablet arrives this summer.

The news comes from a Powerpoint presentation being sent around to HP Small & Medium Business customers previewing what’s coming up, PreCentral reports. The slideshow reveals plans for an HP Movie Store and an HP Music Store. The notes for the latter mention built-in music syncing using cloud servers to remotely store content.

It is hardly surprising at this point to hear that a tech company is embracing the cloud, but HP will offer a few features that trump what Amazon’s recently launched initiative is capable of so far. The TouchPad will use a “smart-caching” to locally store the music that the user is most likely to listen to. There will also be the option of streaming music that isn’t actually owned. The service will apparently extend to HP smartphones as well at some point, likely after they’ve all been updated to webOS 3.0 alongside the TouchPad.

As of now, Apple continues to maintain a stranglehold on the tablet space with its (deservedly) popular iPad. Cloud syncing won’t make or break the success of the TouchPad, but if recent reports of a $499 price tag and June launch are true, it will certainly arrive priced to compete, and with features and hardware specifications that trump the Apple device on several fronts.

Topics

Mobile

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…

Computing

Best 2-in-1 laptop deals: Turn your laptop into a tablet for $349

Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 laptop sits on a small desk folded like a tent.

If you find that your traditional laptop isn't quite doing it for you in terms of workflow, then you might want to consider taking some of what the best tablets and the best laptops have and combining them together in the form of 2-in-1 laptops. These can offer a ton of versatility to your workflow, such as being able to use them in handheld mode for drawing or presenting, as well as the fact that most, if not all, are touch-enabled, so you don't even have to use a mouse if you don't want to.
There are, of course, a ton of great choices out there, but some of the best 2-in-1 laptops can get quite expensive, especially when you're buying them from some of the best laptop brands out there. That's why we've gone out and looked for our favorite 2-in-1 laptop deals to help save you some effort. Be sure to check all our picks below.

Asus Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 -- $349, was $499

Computing

Best Apple Studio Display deals: Save $299 on 5K monitors

Apple Mac Studio and Studio Display.

If you're working on things that require a high-end monitor with excellent resolution and image fidelity, then the Apple Studio Display is what you're looking for, especially if you're in the Apple ecosystem and using things like the Apple MacBook Pro and the Apple MacBook Air. As a 5k monitor, it blows a lot of other monitors out of the water, although it does come with a deep price tag, so if you're the sort of creative pro that's looking to up their game, you'll likely want to grab yourself a good monitor deal. Lukcily, you can get some good discounts on the Apple Studio Display, depending on which model your looking for, and if you're thinking of pairing this with a new Apple computer, check out some of these Apple deals as well.
Apple Studio Display — $1,300, was $1,599

The Apple Studio Display is one of the more premium monitors on the market. It’s not to be confused with the Apple Pro Display XDR, which is Apple’s professional, high end monitor. And while the Apple Studio Display and Pro Display XDR have some similarities, the Studio Display comes in at a much lower price tag. It has a 27-inch screen that comes with 5K resolution and 600 nits of brightness, as well as support for one billion colors and the P3 wide color gamut. It also has a six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio, which makes it a great place to sit down and watch movie.

Computing

Best Dell laptop deals: Cheap laptops starting at $280

The Dell XPS 13 9315 on a table against a window.

If you're looking to pick up a new laptop, then Dell is one of the best laptop brands out there and has a multitiude of optoins for you to pick from depending on your needs. For example, Dell has both Alienware and G-Series which are some of the best gaming laptops on the market, and the Dell XPS lineup are some of the best laptops on the market and are made to compete with the MacBook. But that doesn't mean that Dell only has high-end gear for you to pick, and there are absolutely some great budget laptops and starter options.
Of course, having so many options can be a bit overwhelming for somebody who isn't familiar with Dell or the laptop market, which is why we scoured the Dell website for our favorite picks and listed them below. So, be sure to see if there's anything in here that tickles your fancy, and if not, check out some of these other great laptop deals as well.

Dell Inspiron 15 -- $280, was $330