If the rumors are to be believed, HTC will soon be announcing the coming of a new tablet, to be called the HTC Puccini. Naming it after a composer may suggest it’ll be incorporating features aimed specifically at music lovers, but then again, RIM called their tablet the PlayBook, and that’s aimed primarily at business users.
Though details on the tablet’s specs are currently scant, it is suggested that it’ll run Android 3.x Honeycomb. It’ll also support HTC’s Scribe capacitive pen input technology.
Pocket Now, who reported the rumor having managed to come into possession of an image of the supposed tablet, suggests that the tablet will be compatible with AT&T’s “true 4G” network, which is set to begin operating this year, as opposed to the HSPA+ network that it currently uses.
The news comes as HTC prepares to launch their smaller 7-inch Flyer tablet (now available for pre-order at Best Buy), their first foray into the increasingly crowded tablet market, currently dominated by the Apple iPad.
We had a chance to look at the Flyer in March and were pretty impressed, so if the rumored Puccini tablet can emulate and build on the feature set of the Flyer, we may yet see a true iPad challenger. There has to be one eventually, doesn’t there? But HTC will have its work cut out if Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank proves to be right. He believes that of a predicted 45 million tablets to be sold this year, 35 million are likely to be iPads.
Anyway, let’s not jump ahead here – all we really have is an image of a tablet with HTC and AT&T printed on the front. At this point, there are no clues regarding the price of the Puccini, or a release date – that’s assuming it actually exists.
