The successor to the Barnes & Noble Nook Color will launch this month, DigiTimes reported on Friday. There is no mention if the Nook Color 2 will run Android, as the original did, although we hope Barnes & Noble considers using the more tablet-friendly Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) operating system this time around instead of a the Froyo build, which was designed for use on smartphones. Inventec and Pegatron will assemble the eReaders and supply as many as 2-3 million devices by the end of this year, the report says. TPK Holding will provide the 7-inch color touchscreen panels. DigiTimes also said that the Nook Color 2 E Ink will supply “e-paper backplanes,” which suggests there will be a new E Ink component to the Nook Color 2, although it is unclear what its role will be at this point. Barnes & Noble most recently released its “All New Nook,” a gray-scale device that we favored among all other eReaders. The Nook Color 2 could face stiff competition from Amazon’s new Android-powered tablet, which is also expected to launch this fall.

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Hewlett-Packard will follow up its TouchPad launch next month with the release of an unannounced 7-inch tablet in August, Taiwan Economic News reported on Friday. Citing information from an Inventec Corp. subcontractor, the Taiwanese manufacturer is said to have received a healthy number of tablet orders from HP. The Palo Alto-based company has reportedly ordered between 400,000 and 450,000 tablets per month from Inventec, which also manufactures notebook computers for HP. The source claimed that HP’s orders are comprised of both the 9.7-inch TouchPad set to launch on July 1st, and a second, unannounced tablet that will feature a 7-inch display, though no additional details surrounding the smaller tablet model were reported. An unnamed industry insider estimates that Inventec will build and ship 3 million tablets for HP in 2011.

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Rumor mongering website DigiTimes is reporting that Google and its initial manufacturing partner Inventec could begin shipping Chrome OS netbook as early as this month. The report also details the manufacturers Acer and HP will be releasing their Chrome OS offerings in December. “The Google Chrome notebook will feature an ARM-based platform and will not be selling through retail channels,” reports DigiTimes. The Taiwanese site has an extremely mixed record when it comes to product prognostications and predictions. Hit the read link to check out the original article.

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Looks like Palm’s regular manufacturer, Inventec, is taking a backseat to HTC for the upcoming Treo Pro. Looking at the new images of the Treo Pro, there are now touch surfaces where the soft-keys used to be for the home, calendar, messaging, etc. How appropriate since HTC is so “pro” when it comes to making touch screen devices. We’re pretty big fans of HTC, so this is a great route for Palm to take – especially since the Treo Pro looks like the beginning of a new style and series of devices for the company. Palm’s new device already looked ok, but it’s reassuring knowing that a solid manufacturer with experience in touch screens and beautiful devices is going to be putting this one out. It sheds some new light on our question about this new phone’s build quality. Also, the Palm Treo Pro offers up HTC’s task manager program, so that should have been a dead giveaway concerning the manufacturer.

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