To: U.S. HP Employees HP employees will have a chance to purchase a refurbished HP TouchPad via eBay before the sale is announced to the general public. Specifically, the TouchPads will be offered through one of HP’s newest marketplaces for close-out and refurbished HP

Here’s the deal: buy a TouchPad and any HP laptop or desktop from TigerDirect, pay $299.99 upfront for the tablet, and get a mail-in rebate (sigh) for $150. Or just buy a 32GB TouchPad for $299.99. Yeah, that’s more than they were asking before for the same tablet with accessories that aren’t included here. Supply and demand, folks.

As companies continue to "go mobile" to take advantage of giving their employees the means to manage their work anytime or anywhere, the inevitable problems of how to manage devices and costs quickly becomes top priority.  Imagine being able to easily manage all of the service costs for each device -- before those pricey overage charges hit from going over monthly minutes or data plan allotments.    Imagine being able to receive an alert to your phone before you start roaming.   Imagine being able to not only keep costs under control, but also ensure security, ease support worries and speed up mobile device deployment in your organization.

photo credit: poketmonster [rafa]

Dear Gear Diary, My old Palm TX is dying and I am looking for something to replace it. If it could also replace my phone, that would be a bonus, but I'd be willing to look at MIDs or PMPs. I am looking for something with a robust calendar and to do list (like DateBk6). Something that can set audible alarms for appointments and tasks (like Palm) Something that can sync the calendar to Google (like GooSync). Something that can manage lists (like HandyShopper). Something that will function when it's not connected (because there are spots where I work with no reception, depending on the carrier). And something I can carry in my shirt pocket (not much more than 3×5x0.5 and 8 ounces) If you were looking for PDA functionality in a small device, what would you recommend? And if the answer is a Palm phone, what would be your second choice (since Palm, once again, seems about to go under). Thanks, Dave

(Photo courtesy dcellphone)

If an unlocked Nexus One is too rich for your blood, and you love physical keyboards, Dell has a fabulous deal right now.

You can get an unlocked Palm Treo Pro for $179.99, a savings of over $350! You can use it on T-Mobile and AT&T, though you won't get 3G on T-Mo, and you need to be happy using Windows Mobile. But where else are you going to get a touchscreen, qwerty keyboard smartphone with WiFo, Bluetooth and GPS, all for under $200? If I hadn't jumped to Verizon a few months ago I would be all over this deal!

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It may not get as much excitement as the 5 Android phones scheduled to hit AT&T later this year, but it is great news for Palm as they expand webOS to more carriers.  Verizon's getting their own CDMA branded Pre and Pixi "Plus" models this year -- and now the GSM version is finally going to hit the U.S. on AT&T's network.

One can't help but think that Palm's revamped mobile OS would have done much better overall had they not initially went down the exclusivity route with Sprint.  We'll have to see whether 2010 helps Palm as their Pre and Pixi variants become available on more carriers.

As the battle of the Smartphones rages on, more consumers are making the smartphone switch every day. People are trading up their RAZR's for something with a touchscreen, keyboard and high dollar data package. Comscore conducted a survey back in October to find out the Mobile OS market share as of Q3 2009. The survey was only conducted on users above the age of 13. The results show that 36M Americans are using a smartphone, while 196M use a standard style phone. The numbers in the chart reflect the amount of phones in use at the time of the survey, and not the amount products sold.

Looks like Blackberry

Palm invented the category of a Web-surfing pocket-computer phone with its Treo line in 2002. But more recently it lost its way in the market as some of its rivals developed more innovative phones.