HP Thouchpad
HP Touchpad Tablet
The HP TouchPad is an interesting tablet and I recently investigated a few reviews that I try to summarize below.
The HP TouchPad , a 9.7-inch tablet from HP, uses the webOS operating system that was originally developed for the Palm. It is offered in two version either with 16 Gb or 32 Gb. memory. That’s exactly on parity with the WiFi iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1, current kings of the tablet court.
It is a somewhat chunky tablet. It weighs in at 1.65 pounds (750 grams), heavier than the 1.3 pound (600 gram) iPad 2, heavier than the 1.26 pound (570 gram) Galaxy Tab 10.1, and heavier even than the 1.6 pound (730 gram) Motorola Xoom — which is itself hardly a delicate flower.
Physically, the TouchPad doesn’t stray far from the mould set by the iPad and adopted by the rest of the tablet world. An all-black glass front houses the 9.7-inch multi-touch screen, which has a resolution of 1024 x 768. Above it (in portrait) is a 1.3MP front-facing camera. There’s no rear camera on the TouchPad.
The TouchPad has a few tricks up its sleeve that separate it from the iPad. It’s got support for Adobe Flash built in, a standard USB connector for charging or connecting to your computer, Beats Audio-powered stereo speakers and wireless charging using HP’s Touchstone technology
The HP Thouchpad Performance and Battery Life
The HP TouchPad should be fast with its 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor paired with 1GB of RAM, but sometimes the results are less than expected. Bootup, for example, takes 1:15, which is a long time compared to 30 seconds or so on both the Galaxy Tab and the iPad 2. Similarly, the results of the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark ìnetted a 3,988ms result. That again compares unfavorably to a 2,213ms on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and a nearly identical 2,173ms on the iPad 2.
The real life results seem a bit better. Browsing is reasonably snappy most of the time, even if some pages that just seemed to take a particularly long time to load. Some sites, full of graphics and Flash, loads quickly. The Gmail site, however, takes ages and ages… and ages. Online video plays in the browser, but rarely well.
However an OTA update is in development and that will help to address some performance concerns, specifically with web browsing and orientation adjustments.
The battery life according to HP is 9 hours for continuous video playback, and in our test (WiFi on, Bluetooth off, video looping) we came close to that: just over eight and a half hours. That puts it slightly ahead of the Motorola Xoom but again behind the Tab and iPad 2. Ultimately this means the tablet will comfortably give you a day of serious use, or multiple days of more casual tapping.
The HP Thouchpad Keyboard
The TouchPad only has a software keyboard, so you have to select ‘Just Type’ before you can actually type, which seems to miss the point somewhat
The on-screen virtual keyboard is reasonably roomy, giving you the full QWERTY experience with a full row of number keys in either landscape or portrait. The symbol key gives you access to your usual array of special characters, though many of the more popular ones are available right there on the number keys as well. You’re also given buttons for each of six smiley faces, including, tragically, the sad crying face and, rather more excitingly, the OMG face. There’s also a <3 button, welcome addition for the particularly lazy typist.
The TouchPad is quite good at fixing many spelling mistakes and the like, subtly auto-correcting as you go and alerting you when a fix has been made with a small prompt above the word.
The HP Touchpad Software
When HP bought Palm, it was widely considered to have been mostly fuelled by the desire to acquire the webOS operating system. Multitasking has been something of an add-on to the iOS operating system used in the iPhone and iPad, but it’s always been at the core of webOS.
The TouchPad is HP’s first device running webOS 3.0, a more tablet-friendly version of the little mobile operating system that many have come to love over the years. Not a lot has changed in caparison with the earlier versions , particularly when it comes to the favorite part of the OS: multitasking
The way it works is that any app you run is represented as a ‘card’, and more cards are added as you open more applications. You can then scroll through the cards to look through the apps you have open.
Each app gets its own card and, should that program spawn a new window (a new browser instance, say, or a new email) that additional card joins a stack. You can then shuffle through the cards in any given pile, drag them around, or just flick them off the top of the screen to send them to the big garbage collector in the sky.
As ever, navigating apps like this is genuinely fun; there’s something very satisfying about literally throwing away a window that you no longer want cluttering up your screen or your RAM. And it’s all helped by everything in the OS being generally snappy and responsive
The integrated email application is easy and effective, relying on what HP calls Synergy — a means to tie together multiple accounts and show them all in one view. It’ll work with Google, Exchange, Yahoo!, MobileMe, and good ‘ol POP3 / SMTP out of the box.
Other well working apps are:
- The Calendar
- The Browser
- Facebook
- Bing Maps
- Quick Office
Conclusion
You can watch a video review of the HP Touchpad by clicking the +1 button below
The HP TouchPad Tablet can be easily bought online and you will find many good offers at Amazon.
Click here for the HP TouchPad (16 Gb) offers at Amazon UK
Click here for the HP TouchPad (32 Gb) offers at Amazon UK
Click here for the HP TouchPad (16 Gb) offers at Amazon US
Click here for the HP TouchPad (32 Gb) offers at Amazon US
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References
You can find more detailed reviews at:
Engadget.com
Techradar.com
