Seven hundred and fifty million people. That’s a big number.

When you consider the size of China’s mobile market, estimated at 750 million heads, it’s no wonder companies like Lenovo are targeting the country first with new mobile devices. Earlier this year Lenovo began selling its LePhone smartphone in China, and this week says it will release an Android-based tablet, the LePad, by year’s end.

Lenovo’s chairman has said the company can win a beachhead in China partly because Apple hasn’t been focused there. According to IDG News Service, Apple will begin selling the iPad in …

Having dumped Windows 7 and Android in the last few months, HP’s further commitment to webOS looks to have been revealed by a USPTO trademark application filed earlier this month…

Discovered by electronista, the patent comes for the rather revealing ‘PalmPad’ brand – what must surely be the name HP has in mind for its first webOS tablet (previously codenamed ‘Hurricane’). The brand proposal was first submitted on 9th July with its current status described as “newly filed application, not yet assigned to an examining attorney”.

It would be …

Apple’s apologetic July 16 press conference for iPhone 4 owners on a sleepy Friday in midsummer certainly bore elements of Greek tragedy (or comedy – “get your free cases while they last, kids!”).  But did the entire fiasco bear any relevance for smartbook, netbook, and tablet computer developers?  Absolutely.

Even if there had been no antenna problem, those who clamored to be first in line for an iPhone 4 upgrade often had second thoughts.  Certainly, new features like Retina were appealing, but the change in form factor was not an improvement for many …

It certainly looks as if HP is impressed with its new purchase…

Following on the heels of news it was to drop its Windows 7-based Slate to concentrate on a webOS tablet , the world’s biggest PC maker will now be suspending development on its planned Android devices as well.

John Paczkowski from All Things Digital reports:

“An Android device was supposed to arrive at market in the fourth quarter of 2010. But no longer. Sources in position to know tell me that HP’s Android slate has been delayed and won’t …

Forbes India, a derivative of Forbes Magazine, this week will publish a lengthy article detailing the interesting back story of how Qualcomm is poised to capitalize on India’s huge and untapped market for 3G wireless. The piece describes how savvy moves by the company will ultimately marginalize a competing technology, WiMAX, while positioning Qualcomm for wireless leadership status in India.

CEO Paul Jacobs, by the way, surmises that the India market might only be surpassed by China.

Last week, Goldman Sachs added Qualcomm to its Conviction Buy List, noting that the smartphone market will …

On the eve of VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2010 conference in San Francisco, Rick Merritt of EE Times gave us a provocative preview in which he suggested that the real loser in upcoming netbook, smartbook, and smartphone battles will be neither Intel nor the roster of ARM licensees, but Microsoft.  In fact, his article bore the apocalyptic title ‘Microsoft May Not Survive Post-PC Era.’  Before we assume Merritt is overstating the case to lure more eyeballs (hey, it worked for us, didn’t it?), let’s look at his assumptions.  In a broad sense, the intuitive …

Up until now, the tablet phenomenon has been largely restricted to consumer-centric products like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, but it looks like businesses won’t be left out for long…

Following up on earlier reports from Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, Betanews claims it can now confirm Research In Motion (RIM) is in the process of making a BlackBerry tablet. Kumar had said the device would have a 7-in. touchscreen display, run a 1-GHz Marvell CPU, and have two cameras for video conferencing.

Following up, Betanews said: “A …

Usually, when the words “iPhone” and “killer” appear in the same sentence it’s Apple and the iPhone that are purported to be doing the killing.

Not so, lately.

Despite the enormous success of the iPhone 4, several media outlets are starting to churn out lists of the ways in which Apple could lose its smartphone dominance to Google. Apple, according to the current conventional wisdom, will be particularly vulnerable when handset makers unveil Android 2.2-based devices in the coming weeks and months.

eWeek.com has posted a top-ten list of reasons why Android 2.2 should make …

We’ve mentioned in previous posts how the developers of a special type of programmable chip called a Field Programmable Gate Array, or FPGA, would love to bid themselves into the handheld device world.  In fact, two of the largest FPGA suppliers, Xilinx and Altera, have become ARM licensees, partially in the hope of serving a central processing role in smartbooks and smartphones of the future.

It  turns out, however, that the first FPGA vendor to explicitly mention smartbooks as a target market was a startup in the field, …

Are tablets the netbooks of 2010? Not according to HTC…

Despite the growing furore surround the Apple iPad, the company perhaps closest to challenging Apple’s iPhone says it isn’t yet interested in this blossoming form factor.

Speaking to Pocket-lint, HTC global PR and online community manager Eric Lin said: “We are always looking at it, but, right now, the whole idea is that in order to be successful with a tablet, you need to have something compelling. And not just a compelling form factor. You need to find that compelling use, that compelling story, …