It's been rumoured and suggested since Android 3.0 was announced but Pocket-lint has had it confirmed that Google does indeed have a set of hardware restrictions for devices looking to carry the Honeycomb OS.

At the IFA Global Press Conference in Alicante, the product manager of Hannspree, Jordon Popov revealed the information when explaining why only one out of the company's three tablets lined up for 2011 so far featured the made-for-tablet Google software. He said:

"While Google hasn't released Honeycomb openly, they have certain requirements for those who are bringing it to market, two of which are a minimum screen resolution of 1280x800 and also having a dual front and back camera."

Initially, it had been thought that a dual-core CPU or perhaps even the Tegra 2 SoC was required for Android 3.0 but the notion had been debunked by Android Open Source & Compatibility Tech lead, Dan Morrill, over Twitter with the words.

"#dejavu Random note: there's no hard minimum processor requirement for Honeycomb. Trust me, if there were I'd know."

While there's no reason to believe that Morrill's statement is not true, it is clear that there are other hardware limitations placed on companies looking bring a Honeycomb tablet to market. Pocket-lint contacted Google to find out what other hoops need to be jumped through but the Internet giant decline to comment.

Whether the restrictions on the OS will be released once Google does release the source code for Android 3.0 is unclear but would seem likely.