My review of the HP Touchpad

[howard]

Back in the day I used to own a Acer tablet TM100 Tablet PC. It was slow, had a hard to see screen and had terrible battery life. Anyways that was then and now tablet’s are all the range. It was a horrible piece of garbage that nearly scarred me for life. Since things have changed drastically. Now everyone is getting on the tablet-wagon. Here's HP's entry: the webOS powered Touchpad.

The first thing that jumps out at me is how similar the Touchpad to a iPhone 3G. After thinking about it for a while though it also shares a lot of it’s design language with the original Palm Pre.

Like it’s competitors it sports a dual core processor. In the case of the Touchpad it’s a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon vs 1Ghz A5 processor in the iPad 2, 1Ghz Nvidia Tegra 2 in the Motorola Xoom and a 1Ghz Omap in the Playbook.



The display measures 9.7” with a resolution of 1024x768. It’s the same size and resolution as the the iPad. Here’s a quick comparison with it’s competitors:

HP Touchpad	1024x768	9.7”
Apple iPad 2	1024x768	9.7"
Motorola Xoom	1280x800	10.1"
Blackberry Playbook	1024x600	7"

The Touchpad’s display is shorter but a tad wider than the Xoom. Personally, I prefer the Touchpad/iPad’s display shape and size over the Xoom and other 10.1” Android tablets because the Touchpad’s display is easier to type on and hold in landscape mode. On the other hand, the Xoom’s 16:9 screen is preferable for watching movies.


While the Touchpad’s display is the same size as the iPad 2’s it’s definitely not the same screen. The iPad’s has noticeably deeper black levels, it’s less reflective and less vibrant looking. That said the Touchpad’s display doesn’t look ugly, it’s just not as good.

Size-wise, the Touchpad feels kind of clunky next to the iPad 2. It’s noticeably thicker and heavier.



As far as build quality goes the Touchpad is a lot like the Palm Pre. The back has a really cheesy glossy plastic finish just like the Pre or the iPhone 3Gs. It’s an absolute finger print magnet. Unlike the Pre there’s no optional back cover with a matte finish. I was extremely annoyed that the left side of the bezel goes in if you hold the Touchpad there. I also noticed that the back is mushy in spots but it’s much harder to notice unless you’re looking for it. On the right are volume buttons.



I love that there’s a micro USB port on the bottom. The Touchpad doesn’t require a special cable to connect to your computer. Included with the Touchpad is a 2 amp adapter with a USB port.

Power and a 3.5mm headphone jack on top. Stereo speakers on the left side. They’re pretty loud. In front is the 1.3MP forward facing camera and a menu button.



Web OS is really built around it’s multitasking experience. Once a program is launched you can switch between other programs easily plus you can see their current state. The problem with the Touchpad is that programs take a little longer to launch than they do on the iPad or the Xoom. It can make the Touchpad feel sluggish at times. When I first got the Touchpad this was a real problem but soon after they issued a software update that lessens the wait time noticeably. Anyways, once you launch a program switching between them is pretty fast.

To switch between programs you put your finger on the bottom of the screen and flick it up. This will bring up all the programs you have currently running - each program is called a card. You can tap on a card and flick it up or down to close it or flick left and right to switch between cards. Cards can be grouped together. For example if you’re checking your email and click a link in it the Touchpad will launch a new card for the browser and group it with your email. If you’re already using the browser and open a new window it will group them together. It’s quite ingenious.



When you slide your finger up you can search your email, bookmarks, browsing history, Google, Maps, Wikipedia, Twitter and HP App catalog using the Just Type text box.



Most programs have preferences which can be accessed by pressing the top left corner. General device settings are located at the top right corner while alerts are located just to the left. The general device settings you can access are brightness, Wi-Fi, VPN, Bluetooth, airplane mode, mute and a orientation lock.

I like how you can view alerts from the lock screen but I wish you could drag the lock icon to the alert to view them

WebOS has HP’s Synergy Service which allows many of the Touchpad’s built in applications like the phonebook, instant messaging, email, photos, to support various cloud services like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. It doesn’t support every cloud player. And for those it does it may not support all of their services. Here’s a list of who and what is supported.

	contacts	email	calendar	IM	phone	tasks	pictures	video	docs
Google	x	x	x	x
Exchange	x	x	x			x
Yahoo!	x	x	x	x
Facebook	x		x				x
Linkedin	x
Photobucket							x
Snapfish							x
YouTube								x
Skype	x			x	x
AIM				x
Mobile me		x							x
Box.net									x
Dropbox									x

If you install the Box.net app from the HP app catalog you also get a free 50GB account which is a nice extra. There's no mention of an expirey date.



I love that the on screen keyboard has an extra row for numbers. Tablets have the screen real estate for this so I’d like to see others offer this too. Compared to the iPad the Touchpad’s keys are a little shorter. I guess I prefer the taller keys on the iPad but I like having the numbers too. Maybe HP can work on making the numbers row collapsible. Otherwise the on screen keyboard works well. I can actually touch type on it without looking.

HP includes Quickoffice which can edit MS Office file formats. What’s I love about Quickoffice is that it can handle all sorts of cloud based services. I tried it with Box.net and Google Docs but it also works with Dropbox and MobileMe. What really annoys me is that you can’t use Quickoffice to edit your documents. Apparently you might be able to in the future but right now you can’t.



The email client has a very slick 3 pane view. On the left are your folders, in the middle is the message list and on the right is the email. What’s even slicker is that you can hide or maximize any pane.

The browser supports multiple windows along with Adobe Flash. I like that there’s a feature to auto load flash or not. You can also add webpages to the main menu so that you can launch them from there.

Pictures and video are handled by the same application. While it supports Facebook, Photobucket and Snapfish I was really disappointed it doesn’t support Picasa and Flickr. Still, the door is open for support for them with HP’s Synergy Service. The Touchpad doesn’t have extensive codec support and it doesn’t generate thumbnails for videos.

You can download programs using the HP App Catalog. When I first got the Touchpad it didn’t really work but they have since fixed it. It’s easy to use but there aren’t a lot of apps for the Touchpad.

The Touchpad came out after the Pre/Pixi/Pre 2 so many WebOS devices were written for their 480x320 displays. The iPad has this problem too so it runs iPhone apps in this idiotic 1x or 2x where the program runs in a small window or a bigger pixelated window. The Touchpad is like this but it has an even more idiotic 1x only mode. Anyways there are some Touchpad apps which use the entire screen but most aren’t.

While I don’t think having a camera on a tablet is as important as it is on a phone I’m very disappointed that the Touchpad doesn’t come with a rear facing one. I’m even more disappointed that it doesn’t ship with software to take pictures with the forward facing one.

The Touchpad I’m reviewing is a 32GB model. It connects to my PC as a mass storage device. I transferred a 1GB video file to the Touchpad using robocopy and observed a write speed of around 5.5MB/s which isn’t that fast.

Now when you think about HP you generally think of computers and printers. Some of the built in programs like email, browser, pictures allow you to print to printers located on the same network. I was mildly disappointed that I couldn’t use my touchpad to scan from my HP multifunction printer - HP’s iPad app supports this feature.

Touchpad battery life can be normal or it can be horrible. I suspect this is due to the Touchpad’s multitasking prowess. If you don’t leave any programs open on the Touchpad can last days on standby, however if you leave some programs open it can cause the Touchpad to drain it’s batteries in a couple of hours.



Here’s the Touchpad case. It looks an iPad 2 cover it goes around the back of the Touchpad too.



You can use it to prop the Touchpad up in 2 different positions.



There's a flap on the back to help hold the Touchpad in each position.



It’s got to be the worst fitting OEM case that I have ever seen.



Notice how the case is warped around the microUSB port and how poorly it fits around the power button. It's hard to tell in the pictures but the case doesn't wear well either.



This is the Touchpad’s Bluetooth keyboard. It works well and has a button that performs the same function as sliding your finger up so you can switch programs.It also has buttons to turn the Touchpad off, adjust the volume, screen brightness, etc. There’s an on off switch on the back and it takes AA batteries.



Like the Pre the Touchpad has a stand that can charge it via induction. Charging via induction is pretty sweet but it won’t help you transfer data to the Touchpad any faster.



So while it’s a neat accessory it’s hard to justify the $70 price tag. One thing it has going for it is that it comes with an extra charger unlike the Pre’s Touchstone which didn’t.

Here’s the thing. The Touchpad launched after the iPad 2. It’s heavier, thicker and not as solid, it has no rear facing camera and yet it’s supposed to compete with the iPad 2. Of course it’s not that simple because we have to talk about software. The Touchpad has a very competent operating system that’s a pleasure to use. The on screen keyboard is great and the operating system is tightly integrated with the built in apps. I especially like the browser and email client. Still, the Touchpad doesn’t have the developer support that the iPad or Android tablets enjoy and it’s a big thing.

In the end the HP Touchpad suffers from the same problems that plagued Palm. Namely the software is strong and the hardware is weak... but right after I finished this review HP dropped the price of the Touchpad making it noticeably cheaper than the iPad 2 and cheaper than some Android Tablets which makes it the HP Touchpad a good choice.

[yamanote]

Nice review

I think your case is defective though. My touchpad's OEM case fits snugly (I daresay even better than the Apple case I had for my iPad).

Have you tried inserting the touchpad at an angle before 'snapping' the other end into the shell?

[Anjelous]

I just have to say that I just picked up a touchpad now that its 399. I really think its one of the better tablets, at least for someone such as myself, who really dislikes apple products and who as of yet has Been not very impressed at all in android. I personally feel that the touchpad for the pricepoint is an absolutely wonderful product.

[jjdu4]

I've been an iphone/ipad user since they became available and yes I've tried the android's and have basically RAN back to my IOS devices. But when Palm released the Pre and the Pixi I took notice. I was a previous Palm user during the treo days and I really fell in love with WebOS. I knew WebOS had the potential to rival Apple's IOS and even squash Google's android OS if they could get the hardware right. Unfortunately Palm didn't excute that task properly. I fill in time HP will continue to make strides in developing a very competitive solution both software and hardware wise. I currently have a 5" Dell Streak android phone/tablet, a 7" Dell Streak android tablet and I gave my mom my iPad when my iPad2 came in. Of course the two dell tablets never get picked up now as the iPad 2 is my goto tablet........until I picked up my HP Touchpad a couple of weeks ago. At first I was a little dissapointed as it felt a little sluggish but as they've said the software update seemed to have fixed that issue. It is a bit heavier and thicker which doesn't seem to feel as good in the hands as the apple device and without some type of case it's definately a finger print magnet. But putting those small gripes aside I can honestly say that I seem to enjoy using the Touchpad more than any of the others including my iPad2. WebOS's multitasking is GREAT and the web browser is second to none in my opinion. With Flash support its just as good as my highend desktop pc for my web browsing experience. The speakers on the TP also are much louder than those found on my iPad2. Sometimes I find myself trying to turn up my ipad only to find that it was already up all the way. I'm also a HUGE fan of the Beats sound products......having both the Monster Beats Studio headphones and the Monster Beats Boombox I was very happy to see HP using their technology especially on the Touchpad. Unfortunatley, for some stupid reason, HP let HTC sign an exclusive deal with Beats on the mobile handset side of things! Anyway I'll stop rambling and just say the more I use my HP Touchpad the more I love it. Just yesterday my wife and I were talking about buy our girls ipad devices for Christmas this year but I told her that if HP continues to support WebOS they will be getting TouchPads instead!! Plus I'll save a few hundred!!

[Anjelous]

Well i really love the Touchpad but seeing as HP just killed the platform i will take this opportunity to leave a sinking ship, its been a great week or so that i have very much enjoyed my time, but with the future of Web OS being what it is, i must take back my touchpad and look into what i would like to replace it with.. So very disapointed in HP right now.

[Windbag]

Thanks for that great, detailed review, Howard.

I see that HP is now abandoning the platform and blowing out the Touchpads for $100.
I wonder how much functionality is left, if it might be a good deal at that price.
For example, as a wifi pad for reading email in the house etc ..

Everybody loves a bargain. Is this something I should think about buying, or should I stick to the Android platform that I'm familiar with and use for everything else?

[connexx]

Was anyone about to get a bluetooth connection with Nokia N8?
My Touchpad does not see my N8
My N8 does not see my Touchpad

Also Touchpad does not support Ad Hoc networks
Touchpad will not see Wifi hotspot by Joikuspot on Nokia N8

[wonderwoman1969]

I've been a member of this forum for years and have been an iPhone and Apple user. Tonight I got home and my discounted HP touchpad had arrived. Like every new gadget, there is a learning curve. I had to Google to find out how to close apps. You slide your finger up to close an app. I must say that after years of using iPhones and iPads, this device is different. But is that bad, no it is not. After only a few hours of playing with this device, I am very pleased. Many reviews said don't waste your money on this device because of the limited apps and no further development of WebOs. Well do you remember the first Iphone? It came out before the app store and the only apps on the phone were the ones it came with. I bought this device at a discounted price because I was considering buying a Nook Color. I own a desktop and several laptops and all I need a tablet for is to listen to music, watch movies, check the web, check my email, read books, look at pictures, check my social sites. And if there are no new apps added, this tablet will still do that. I hate when people try to say this is not a great device. Use your laptop or desktop to do large tasks, tablets are not meant for that. They are meant to be easy to carry and do lightweight computer tasks. I have only played on this device for 2 hours and I must say it was worth my money. If you can get one for under $250, it is worth the money. I own over 300 apps for my iPhone, but how many do I use on a regular basis? I use only a handfull regularly. Sure next year or sooner there will be devices with faster processors, but for the most part this is still an awesome device at the new discounted prices. The build is solid. The black of the device reminds me of the iPhone 3G with the sexy piano black finish. Buy a case! This is a decent tablet, the only mistake HP made is pricing it the same as an iPad. Had the Touchpad been priced lower than an iPad, Samsung GalaxyTab, or Motorola Zoom this device would have received a fair amount of the market share for tablets.

[lmcjipo]

I got an HP TouchPad on Friday last week from a friend who purchased it from me at the reduced price of $100+taxes (in Canada). He also got me the case for it. Total damages = $145 (taxes included).

I've been using it this weekend after upgrading the OS and for the price, I like it. If it was any more expensive, I would not have purchased it.

Prior to this tablet experience, I've been using (and purchased) a no-name Chinese Android tablet (running 2.1) which obviously pales by comparison in terms of speed and responsiveness.

I've just started to read some articles about modding it and overclocking it. I'm not sure that I will do that yet.

I've been using it this weekend for mainly reading my Acrobat ebooks as well as watching streaming Flash video on CBC.ca. The experience on CBC.ca is not that great (some occasional issues when it breaks for the commercials/ads but all in all, it didn't bother me too much. I've also been using it for YouTube. The experience on YouTube is very good although I'm not sure why when you launch the YouTube application, it also seems to launch the browser and you are actually using the browser to watch the YouTube videos (what is the point in having the "YouTube application").