HP TouchPad Review

HP

Review Summary:

The TouchPad is not the top tablet, but it is a well-designed, usable device that is worthy of consideration by anyone, especially webOS fans.

Pros

• Well built
• Excellent audio
• Snappy and responsive
• Well-organized app catalog
• Fast and effective device search

Cons

• webOS not quite ready for large-screen tablets
• Display colors a bit off at times
• Web browsing sometimes sluggish
• No rear-facing camera

HP TouchPad Full Review

 

The HP TouchPad is the first tablet computer featuring webOS, in some ways the spiritual successor to the original Palm handheld devices. Like its competitors, the TouchPad offers a multimedia experience with music, photos, apps, and games, as well as email and web browsing. But what sets it apart is HP Synergy, which promises to gather the various components of your online life such as Facebook and Google and organizes it all into a seamless whole.

The TouchPad is currently available direct from HP and from a variety of retailers for $499.99 for the 16GB version and $599.99 for the 32GB version.

BUILD & DESIGN

At first glance, the TouchPad looks like any other tablet computer; when I first took it out of the box I was surprised by how much it looks like an iPad, at least from the front. As far as size is concerned, the Touchpad is slightly shorter and wider than my original iPad, and it feels just a bit heavier.

When you look at the front of the TouchPad, you may miss the front-facing camera above the screen and the home button below, as they're rather low profile and non-descript. The large touchscreen display dominates the front of the device, which is certainly expected. The back panel is plain black plastic, with an HP logo and a few regulatory/informational icons close to the bottom.

The top right corner of the device is where you'll find the power button; the headphone jack is on the opposite corner.

The volume up/down rocker button is on the top right side, and the micro USB charge/sync port is on the bottom edge. The left side has two oblong speaker cutouts that you won't even notice unless you happen to run your finger along the side and feel them. They're very unobtrusive, especially since the speaker mesh is black just like the device. 

I found the TouchPad to be very well built and quite solid. All of the corners, seams, buttons and such are well executed, with no rough spots, flexing, or other cosmetic issues. One concern is the plastic back of the TouchPad; because it seems like it will be generally less reliable over the long term than the metal backing on the iPad, only time will tell if that is a true concern.

As far as ease-of-use and portability are concerned, I have no complaints. Though the buttons are low profile, they're easy to find and operate without really looking away from the screen. The corners are rounded so no matter how you place your hands, the TouchPad is comfortable to hold.

The only slight negatives for me were the overall weight, since it feels a bit heavier than it should, and the back cover. It's a very slippery plastic, so I would want a case or skin to make it a little easier to grip.

As far as missing ports are concerned: though I would like to see an SD card slot for easier transfers of photos and music, it's not an absolute necessity. 

HP TouchPad specs:

• webOS (3.0)
• 9.7-inch diagonal XGA (1024 x 768) IPS capactive touchscreen
• 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core APQ8060 processor
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB or 32GB internal memory
• Front-facing 1.3-megapixel webcam
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB
• 6,300 mAh battery
• 9.45 x 7.48 x 0.5 inches
• Ships with AC charger, microUSB cable, cleaning cloth
• Price at Launch: $499.99 (16GB), $599.99 (32GB)

Screen and Speakers
The TouchPad has a 9.7-inch LED backlit, XGA capacitive multi-touch touchscreen display, and it looks great. In most respects, it looks almost identical to my iPad, with clear text and vibrant colors. It's hard to directly compare the two since they're running different operating systems and screen layouts, etc. They are completely different, so I put Angry Birds HD on both of them for a side-by-side comparison.

The games looked virtually identical to each other, aside from the backgrounds and such looking more green on the TouchPad. It wasn't too obvious until I looked closely, but once you see it, it's hard not to notice. It may have something more to do with the app than with the TouchPad's display, because my photos, web pages, etc. looked the same on both devices, and I didn't see any particular differences between them.

Glare was an equal problem on both tablets; I have a window next to the desk in my office and I found myself angling the TouchPad just as much as the iPad when it comes to trying to avoid glare from that window. The TouchPad's brightness can be adjusted via the Settings app, and though it has a good range, it isn't capable of the same eye-blinding brightness as some other tablets.

The TouchPad's touchscreen accuracy is a little off; sometimes the small "ripple" effect that appears on the screen when you touch it, like a cursor, wasn't where I had actually touched the screen. That wasn't a problem in day-to-day use, however, because webOS is somewhat more forgiving regarding that sort of thing. While I appreciate that when I'm just playing games or surfing the web, it could be an issue for future art apps, for example, where you want the line you're drawing on screen to exactly follow your finger. 

While the screen is quite good, the speakers are even better. The TouchPad has stereo speakers and integrated Beats audio. Music and games sound great, with rich, full-bodied sound. And the TouchPad is plenty loud to power your next party too--at the highest levels, the volume was almost painful, but still of good quality.

PERFORMANCE

If you've already used a Palm smartphone such as the Pre or the Veer, you'll feel very comfortable with the TouchPad. Though there are a few changes and differences, almost everything is basically the same. A card paradigm is used, so each app is on its own "card" and you switch between them by swiping left and right. You'll also need to know (or learn) a few gestures for closing and stacking apps, such as flinging a card "up" toward the top of the screen to close it.

If you have previous experience, you'll be glad to know that everything from your Palm Profile (now renamed your HP webOS Account") is automatically transferred over to the TouchPad as soon as you sign in. You'll still have to enter the passwords for your Facebook, Google, and Microsoft Exchange accounts, but that takes just a few moments and is much easier than starting the whole process from scratch. All of your previously downloaded apps will carry over as well, so you're ready to go with all of your favorite games.

The best part of webOS is HP Synergy, which intelligently and seamlessly combines all of your online accounts into one. Multiple calendars are displayed, color coded of course, just as they would be if you were looking at your Google calendar on the web. You can view all of your email in one ginormous pile if you like, or you can view each inbox separately. You don't have to worry about which information came from which account; just reply and the TouchPad is smart enough to send it from the correct address. It is a little awkward to switch from panel to panel in the email app, however, trying to swipe from one to the other without the special gesture area below the screen (as on a webOS smartphone) means you have to use a tiny little control at the edge of the panel at the bottom of the display. If you're not careful and miss your mark, you can delete a message without meaning to do so, since messages are deleted by swiping to the right on the subject line.

Opening and closing apps is smooth, and switching between them is fast. I didn't experience any crashes while multi-tasking, even when running a game and my email and the App Catalog all at once. There were a few slowdowns at times, but nothing awful. One strange thing happened when I set up a Skype account; the TouchPad seemed to hang for about five minutes after I hit submit. I got a "welcome to Skype" email after a couple of minutes, but it took a bit longer for the TouchPad to catch up.

The web browser works perfectly, though sometimes a bit slow. I know that my corporate Wi-Fi network is super fast, so I'm not sure why pages sometimes took quite a while to load. In fact, of all the major tablets released this year, the TouchPad had the worst browser performance as measured by TabletPCReview using the Sunspider Javascript benchmark (lower number is better).

All of my standard Flash test sites worked, including the resource-hungry Moodstream.gettyimages.com. That site took a couple of tries to load, but that isn't uncommon so I didn't think it was a major problem. It was also interesting to hear the audio from moodstream still playing in the background when I opened additional pages; that's multitasking at work for you. Pinch to zoom works great, and you aren't limited so you can make the text and photos on any page extremely large, if you're so inclined. Even at large magnification, text and images are sharp, highlighting the very good quality of the TouchPad's display.

The virtual keyboard works fine; I had some trouble at first, but that's mainly because I'm so used to the iPad keyboard, that it was hard for me to find the right keys at times. I appreciate having quick access to the hyphen, quotation mark, and slash, since I use them all the time. I also found the number row (with lots more punctuation easily accessible with the shift key) to be a welcome change. The keys are a little smaller than on other tablets, because the overall virtual keyboard is roughly the standard size, but with more keys.

The battery life is excellent--it never seems to run out, and the battery meter at the top right corner of the display goes down so slowly you hardly notice it. I was able to use the TouchPad rather heavily for several days without having to worry about charging it up, and while I wouldn't travel without a charger, I don't feel constantly chained to it either.

It's also nice to have a choice--the TouchPad comes with a standard USB cable and a small travel charger with folding prongs. You can stick with that, or you can upgrade to the Touchstone charging dock for $80. It's pricey, but wireless charging is so much more convenient. Instead of plugging a cable directly into the tablet, you just set it down on the dock. It's fast and convenient, and turns the TouchPad into a desktop clock and photo frame as well.

The dock will hold the TouchPad in both portrait and landscape mode, but it will only charge the device in portrait mode. It doesn't matter whether you orient the power button at the top or the bottom, it will still charge. It even folds, so even though it's obviously larger than just the standard cable and charger, it's still very packable and won't take up much space in your suitcase. That way, you can have an easily readable clock even in your hotel room, and you can enjoy photos from home. It can even be a musical slideshow, if you happen to have a music app playing in the background.

As mentioned previously, connectivity via Wi-Fi is good, though as I mentioned previously it can sometimes seem to be a bit slower than it should be. That could also be due to the fact that web pages aren't shown at all until they fully load, making it seem to take longer than it should.

The TouchPad has only one camera, the front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera that is used for video calling with Skype. It works well, as does Skype to phone calling, though the latter suffered from really poor voice quality during my testing. It was hard to carry on a conversation due to the weird echoes, though in a pinch it could work if there was no other option.

Apps
The TouchPad includes all of the standard webOS apps. On the homescreen there's a quick access bar for the web browser, email, calendar, messaging, and photos. Everything else is accessed by tapping the small arrow on the bottom right side, or by using the search function at the top of the screen. The launcher has four categories; apps, downloads (for apps downloaded from the App Catalog), favorites (drag your most-used apps here for quicker launching), and settings (a control panel-style collection of icons for the various TouchPad settings, from accounts, backup and Bluetooth to print manager and sounds). Apps includes the homescreen apps as well as memos, Adobe Reader for PDF files, Quickoffice for word processing and spreadsheets, and maps for navigation. There's a music app for listening to your favorite tunes, plus YouTube and Facebook. There's an icon for the Amazon Kindle app, but it is not yet working so it's just a frustrating placeholder at this point.

The HP App Catalog is extremely well organized, and though it's a little thin right now there are still some great apps to choose from, including the ever-popular Angry Birds. It starts with Pivot, an electronic magazine of sorts that is devoted to helping you find the best apps. It's a great idea, and really useful, with articles, photos, and really great suggestions on 32 pages.

You can also browse by category, with a handy listing on the left side and tabs at the top for featured, paid, free, and new apps. If you've already got a particular app, you can launch it from within the App Catalog instead of having to go back to the launcher. There are user reviews and screenshots for every app I looked at, and video links for many of them that take you to YouTube for a quick taste of what the app can do for you.

Obviously the HP App Catalog isn't going to have the thousands and thousands of apps that you'll find in the Apple App Store, but there's a good selection here and a lot of the big ones are already here. There's not a lot of junk at this point either, so you won't have to wade through page after page of junk apps when you're looking for something specific.

CONCLUSION

In just about every respect, I found myself impressed with the TouchPad. It's not perfect by any means, and while I think the hardware (especially the audio) is almost fantastic, webOS isn't quite there yet, at least on the larger screen of a tablet. Advanced gestures were a little more difficult to use to control navigation, and some changes, like the multiple panels in the email app, didn't work as well as they do on a smartphone.

I think it's just a matter of time before the tablet version of webOS becomes a true competitor that is able to go toe-to-toe with iOS and Android. Sure there aren't as many apps, but the ones that are in the App Catalog are generally of good quality. If HP smoothes out the rough edges, the TouchPad can become a true heavyweight in the field.

As it is now, I can't recommend it over the iPad, but it is a well-designed, usable device that is worthy of consideration by anyone, and especially by those who are already using a webOS smartphone and want something a little larger for more productivity and entertainment on the go, but on a larger screen.

Pros Well built Excellent audio Snappy and responsive Well-organized app catalog Fast and effective device search

Cons webOS not quite ready for large-screen tablets Display colors a bit off at times Web browsing sometimes sluggish No rear-facing camera