HP TouchPad Review

Introduction:

Feeling the depths of oblivion, it seemed as though all of Palm’s hard work with webOS was going nowhere fast as their mobile platform wasn’t adopted by consumers compared to the competition, but lucky for them, HP swooped down and rescued them from a possible premature death. Reinvigorated and backed by an almost insurmountable amount of cash flow, HP is now calling the shots and taking webOS to new levels that Palm only dreamt about in its sleep. In fact, it was only back in February when the world was first introduced to the next level of webOS devices – with one of them being none other than the HP TouchPad.

Nearly five months have passed by, and the world is finally getting its taste of the very first webOS 3.0 tablet in the HP TouchPad – but more importantly, some are curious to know how it stands against some of the titans in the market. Luckily, it flaunts that oh-so lovely price point of $500 for the base 16GB Wi-Fi only model, and knowing that it’s packing equally impressive specs under the hood, it should undoubtedly prove itself as a competitor. However, knowing that the bar has been set in terms of what consumers expect out of tablets, it’s going to need to excel from head to toe in order to have a piece of the pie at dessert.

The package contains:

• HP TouchPad
• microUSB cable
• Wall Charger
• Get Started Guide
• micro-fiber cleaning cloth
• Terms & Conditions of Services

Design:

Let’s be honest here, but the very first thing to come to mind when looking and holding the TouchPad, is the fact that it reminds us of a super-sized iPhone 3G/3GS – mainly because of its black plastic exterior and placement of buttons. Rather than sporting some sort of flashy industrial design, the TouchPad’s conventional look is seemingly cutthroat and doesn’t try to impress. Instead, it’s constructed out of this glossy piano black plastic, which looks wickedly polished out of the box, but it scarily attracts fingerprints and smudges like no other. At the same time, it’s larger (0.54” thick) and surprisingly heavier (26.10 oz) than some of its rivals – though, it makes us wonder since it sounds hollow after a quick tap on the back. Nevertheless, it’s not going to win any awards in the design department, but it’s comfortable to hold thanks to its curved rear – while feeling solidly built for the most part.



Boasting a 9.7” IPS display with an aspect ratio of 4:3, which is the same one in use with the iPad 2, it actually sports the same resolution as well at 768 x 1024 pixels. More than detailed enough to make out fine text, there are no problems with its clarity, but its low brightness output makes it difficult to view in outdoor settings with the sun present. As for color production, it’s admirable with its natural  tones and doesn’t appear to be overly saturated – while retaining its vibrancy thanks to its great viewing angles. All in all, it’s indeed a nice looking display, but doesn’t deliver the luminance that’s seen with other displays – like the ones on the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1


Holding it in portrait, there’s a flat looking physical button beneath the display that minimizes all the cards and brings up the launcher bar – and at the same time, it even acts as the notifications light as well. When emails, messages, or social networking notifications are received, the LED light inside of it will glow indicating that something is waiting for our attention.

Meanwhile, the only camera found on the entire thing is the 1.3-megapixel front-facing one placed above the display. Even though HP means business with the TouchPad, it still would’ve been nice to see a rear camera to give users that added functionality.

With two speakers lining the left side of the tablet, it naturally offers stereo support, while the tablet’s clicky feeling volume rocker is placed towards the upper right edge. Interestingly, there’s a narrow oval shaped cutout that actually tucks away the tablet’s serial information towards the bottom corner on the right edge. We suspect this to be the SIM card slot for future iterations of the tablet sporting cellular connectivity.


Along the top edge of the tablet, we find its 3.5mm headset jack, microphone, and small, but tactile feeling power button. Conversely, the only thing found on the bottom side is a microUSB port used for data and charging connectivity. Sadly though, we’re again presented with the gleaming issue that it lacks yet another feature that’s commonly found with tablets nowadays – like video-out via an HDMI-out port of some sort.

Finally, the rear plastic casing is completely bare except for the distinguishable HP logo and smaller brandings towards the bottom area. Much like some of its contemporaries, there’s no easy access to its internal 6,300 mAh battery – meaning, you’ll need to send it away for service.

Interface:

Far away from being perceived as underpowered, the HP TouchPad is packing its own brand of heat under the hood with its dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 processor.  Obviously, one would imagine something like that exhibiting some delectable responsive tendencies with various functions, but rather, its performance is strained due to some general evidence of lag, slowdown, and delays throughout the platform. Although it doesn’t happen all the time, it’s enough to sometimes hinder the experience – also, it doesn’t offer the same fluidity seen with the HP Veer 4G’s operation, for example. Lastly, some apps for some odd reason take an extraordinary amount of time to fully load. Who knows what it is, but the TouchPad’s unpredictable performance is a challenge on its own and makes you wonder if things were rushed to meet a deadline.

As much as it’s touted as being the very first webOS 3.0 powered tablet, some might not be all too impressed with the platform experience, while on the other hand, others might adore its fundamental approach. In its defense, it takes the foundational elements of webOS, like its awesome implementation of multi-tasking and notifications, and manages to present them in a manner that’s ideal for a tablet. However, it’s still lacking in the personalization department since the only thing we can modify is the background wallpaper – and of course, you’ll need to run dedicated apps to receive useful information; like the weather. Despite its unchanged stance with personalization, the experience doesn’t deviate dramatically from what we’ve been seeing with webOS all this time, which has always been pretty decent.

So what’s new with webOS 3.0? For starters, the status bar sits at the very top edge of the interface and presents you with some of the most common pieces of information – like the time, battery level, and connectivity status. Furthermore, you can press on the time to bring down a menu that provides additional settings for its display brightness, connectivity, and the ability to lock the orientation. At the same time, you’ll see notifications for things like emails, social networking messages, and more pop up on the right side of the status bar. Finally, the left side of it offers options that are specific to the opened application. Without a doubt, it’s nice having access to the status bar at all time – thus, giving you commanding control at all times.


Previously known as universal search, the TouchPad’s “Just Type” feature on the homescreen works exactly what it sounds like – start typing and it’ll aggregate relevant content. Showing its closeness with Synergy, as it provides suggestions based on your input, we’re presented with options like searching content via Google Search, Wikipedia, Twitter, Bing Maps, and the HP App Catalog. Even though it’s a nice gesture, this feature isn’t entirely new seeing that some form of it is implemented on other platforms.


There’s no kidding that webOS in general is one of the better platforms for multi-tasking and notifications, but the HP TouchPad’s transition to the tablet space is indeed fitting. Naturally, apps are opened up in cards that can be fully displayed by simply executing a swipe up movement from the bottom of the display – or pressing on the physical home button. Of course, we find the “stacks” feature useful since it organizes cards on top of one another.


Again, the launcher is positioned in the bottom area of the interface and holds up to 5 defined apps that you can quickly launch – with an additional icon that’s used to gain access to its apps menu. Unfortunately, HP decided to rid the sliding launcher bar that’s accessed on webOS smartphones by slowly swiping up from the bottom portion of the display at any time. Once you get into the apps menu though, icons are laid out in the typical grid-like fashion – while being organized into four categories. Thankfully, you can rearrange them to your liking by simply long pressing on one to activate the process.


So what can we learn from the webOS 3.0 experience on the HP TouchPad? Well, it looks like webOS was born to be a tablet OS from the start. However, the TouchPad’s unpredictable performance hinders the experience at times, but we’re sorely waiting for some software updates to hopefully iron out some of its kinks.

Contacts:

Utilizing that familiar two-panel layout that’s commonly used with most tablets, the Contacts app functions as it should – and rightfully so! On the left side, we’re given access to our scrollable address book, while detailed information regarding the selected contact is displayed on the right. It’s all straightforward and all with its presentation, but we’re once again presented with Synergy’s presence seeing that it incorporates profiles like Google, Facebook, and others into the mix. Overall, the only thing we find new over the smartphone mobile OS is its fitting layout.



Organizer:

Not exactly separating itself from the pack with its Calendar app, it’s essentially the same experience that’s found on other webOS smartphones. Naturally, you’ll be able to sync with calendars from Google, Yahoo, HP webOS, and Yahoo to name a few. In addition, we find the same color coding system to our calendars to make it easier for us to differentiate our appointments, but as a whole, they could’ve better organized the extra white space. So whether you view it in a monthly, weekly, or daily view, it’s simply stretched out to fill up the entire space of the display – hence the extra, yet valuable dead space.


Scratching our head initially, we’re baffled as to where HP placed the clock and alarm functions of webOS 3.0. Nope, there isn’t a recognizable icon or something else, but instead, there are no actual alarm functions! In fact, the only thing remotely close to it is the three giant sized clocks available when the TouchPad is placed into Exhibition Mode. For those not familiar with this function, Exhibition Mode is best described as a screen saver  that displays things like the time, photos, Facebook statuses, and calendar appointments as the tablet is charging.


Unfortunately, webOS 3.0 doesn’t offer any native world clock or calculator app, but of course there are plenty of solutions available for download in the HP App Catalog. But seriously though, they are some common items that consumers expect to find from the onset.

Messaging:

Launching the Messaging app, it’s actually the instant messaging and Skype client for webOS 3.0, which supports AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Google Talk. Naturally, the two-panel layout is in use once again as the majority of the display is reserved for your conversations. From the looks of it, this will also be the hub for SMS messaging down the road for future versions of the TouchPad sporting cellular data connectivity.

Greeted with the webOS 3.0 keyboard, its layout is quite customary to tell you the truth as it emulates the look of any physical keyboard – with even a dedicated row for numbers! Without a doubt, buttons in landscape are indeed large in size to comfortably type casually, but there’s a lot of travel needed by our thumbs to type with its portrait option. Even though there are secondary characters incorporated with the numbers row, performing a long press doesn’t input the warranted character right away, but instead, it provides us some options of what to choose. Actually, it does limit our typing speed a little bit, but additional special characters/punctuations and emoticons are available by clicking the symbols button on the keyboard.

At times though, its responsiveness stutters and locks up – with typed text coming up after a short delay. Even worse, it strangely provides us incorrect suggestions with words that are spelled correctly. All in all, the experience is more than decent when it works, but when it doesn’t, it can undoubtedly be a nightmare.

One of the biggest frustrations we have when typing is the process of making selections and properly placing the cursor – with the latter, it’s just a matter of pressing on the display until we find the correct position. In terms of making a selection or highlighting passages of text, you essentially long press a word, and from there, we find tiny sized cursor placements for us to position. With its sometimes inaccurate recognition, we’re easily frustrated at times with the experience.

Carrying over the general look of the Email app featured on webOS smartphones, we’re glad to see HP tuning its layout to offer a cohesive experience that allows us to modify its paneled view. Specifically, there are three panels in plain view initially that displays our accounts on the left, emails within the selected account in the middle, and the actual details of the selected email in the right most one. Not something that we have seen before, we can resize it to either a two or one panel view by pressing and then moving the three bar icons in the bottom edge of the interface.


Although it we find a universal inbox, it’s still missing features like threaded conversations to make it more organized. At its core, we find it more than useful in sending and receiving emails, but doesn’t have the concrete and in-depth functionality evident with Android’s Gmail experience. Lastly, setup is pretty simple like most other things by providing an email address and password for automatic setup.

Connectivity & Data:

Currently, the HP TouchPad is available in only Wi-Fi form, but we expect to see a variety of cellular connected variants in the future. In the meantime though, we’re left to using its 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi to get a data connection with the tablet. And in our testing, it’s able to retain a solid connection even at approximately 30 feet away from a router. Moreover, its Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR enables us to connect things like a wireless Bluetooth keyboard to it with no problems. Finally, the HP TouchPad has some difficulty trying to get a fix on our location indoors with its GPS. However, when we’re outside, it generally takes less than 10 seconds to hone into our general vicinity – but manages to get our exact location within 20 seconds.

Right from the start, the one thing we notice with the TouchPad’s web browsing performance is that it takes some time loading up complex web pages – albeit, it can be related to some background processes related to Flash. Once it’s fully loaded though, it provides us that desktop-like experience thanks to its support for Flash. However, there are some hiccups with its operation every now and then that cause some jerkiness with its navigational movement – though, it’s not all too worrisome. For general purposes, the WebKit based browser is equipped enough in handling even the most demanding users out there.

Camera:

Yes, there is ONE camera on board with the HP TouchPad, but it’s only used for Skype video chats – and that’s all! Unfortunately, there is no app that allows you to capture photos or videos with its 1.3-megapixel sensor. Testing it out, the quality of Skype video chat over Wi-Fi is satisfactory to the imagination due to not too pixelized images and audio that is is mostly in sync.

Multimedia:

Utilizing an all too conventional looking music player, which is obviously more than functional in playing some tunes, there are no flashy looking effects in use whatsoever. Rather, it follows the theme of using a two-panel layout that actually incorporates the player’s controls into the bottom area of the interface. Moreover, there is an icon located in the lower right corner that modifies the layout so that we can browse through content by simply swiping linearly through the giant sized album covers on-screen.


Moving over to another app, we can gain access to the mini player by tapping the icon in the notifications area. Interestingly enough, the mini player isn’t be available if you happen to have a simple PIN password enabled with the TouchPad – though, it does come up in the lock screen if you don’t have one. With its two speakers, it pumps out some neutral tones that do not sound strained or irritating to the ear – even at the loudest volume. Additionally, the TouchPad features Beats Audio support that allows you to “listen to music the way the artist intended” by plugging your headphones into its 3.5mm headset jack.

Considering that it’s packing one powerful processor on paper, it’s rather strange to find the TouchPad having difficulty in playing our test high-definition 1080p video. Using the same movie trailer encoded in MPEG-4 and H.264 1920 x 1080 resolution, there are prevalent instances of delay with its playback. On top of that, the audio isn’t in-sync to the playing video as well – though, it manages to play 720p videos perfectly fine. Anyway, the resolution of the screen won't allow you to enjoy full HD 1080p video anyway, and the experience with 720p is still satisfactory with its sharp details, deep color tones, and smooth playback.

Multimedia content can all be accessed by running the Photos & Videos app, which of course incorporates that usual looking two-panel layout – with the library in the left and content in the right. Strange to say, we experience again some erratic kinetic scrolling when browsing through content, and at times can be totally unresponsive. Regretfully though, webOS 3.0 still only allows you to share photos via emails only and doesn’t offer any kind of editing options.


Available in both 16GB and 32GB capacities, it should be more than enough for anyone out there – especially when there is no way of shooting photos and videos. Using the included microUSB cable and connecting it to a computer, it’s read as a removable drive and allows for easy transferring of files.

Software:

When it comes to downloading apps, we’re impressed by plentiful third party apps available in the HP App Catalog. Surprising to say the least, it actually boasts a heck of a lot more apps (both free and paid) than what we saw with Honeycomb’s launch with the Motorola XOOM. In actuality, they’re not simply gimmicky apps to be there for the platform at launch, but rather, there are quite a few that are well thought-out and completely imaginative.


We are a bit surprised with the lack of a dedicated YouTube client on the TouchPad. Oh well, we guess if we can just use the main YouTube site then the absence of a dedicated client is not such a big deal.

Rather than finding Google Maps, which is something that’s used by webOS smartphones all around, we’re instead given the Bing Maps experience. Although it’s not quite as in-depth in its offerings compared to the Google Maps experience with Honeycomb, it still offers the basic set of functionality – like getting directions (driving, transit, & walking), satellite view, bird’s eye view, and displaying traffic. Naturally, it works, but doesn’t match the offerings available with the competition.


For those social networking buffs, the HP TouchPad is preloaded with an official Facebook app that’s refreshing because it’s one of the few official ones found in the tablet space. Taking the cake amongst the crop since it employs all the best aspects of checking out Facebook on a tablet, it’s able to give us a tasteful experience with its rich set of features.


Furthermore, there are a host of other apps that we find especially gratifying in the App Catalog since they’re carefully developed to provide a sensual experience on the TouchPad. In fact, we downloaded apps like WeatherBug, USA TODAY, Comics HD, and Spaz HD that are firmly optimized for the TouchPad. Still, you can actually download and run all the usual webOS apps for smartphones in the App Catalog. However, they’re not up-scaled to fill the entire display, but rather, an emulator that mimics a smartphone is presented to us – with the gesture area in tow

Performance:

Carrying along a 6,300 mAh battery inside, its battery life is definitely up there with the crop. With normal everyday operation, which consists mostly of web browsing, it’s able to give us easily a solid one day’s worth of usage – with 20% left at the end of the day. Moreover, it’s able to play a movie continuously for 8.5 hours while setting its brightness to the middle setting, volume at its loudest, and connected to a Wi-Fi network. In any event, its battery life is indeed really good.

Conclusion:

To tell you the truth, we sincerely want to absorb and like the HP TouchPad – like seriously, we really do! Unfortunately though, we can’t fully commit to it wholeheartedly because it isn’t up to par, nor polished both in the inside and out versus the pack of competition out there. And ultimately, its base price of $500 sticks out like a sore thumb because it’s not as good looking as its rivals. So, if we’re going to gauge it in terms of value for the buck compared to the competition, it already proves a point in lagging behind the expectations set by its rivals.

Nonetheless, not everyone is going to be too concerned about shooting content with a camera, but more importantly, it’s going to be the platform experience that’s going to sell some people. As we’ve mentioned, webOS could’ve easily been a tablet platform a long time ago – thanks to its intuitive touch interface. However, we’re expecting something comparatively different with the look and feel of webOS 3.0 to differentiate itself from the smartphone experience. Combining the fact that the platform experience is riddled with performance issues, it’s not going to win any brownie points in winning people over. We’re not simply talking about slowdown with gaming here, but it’s a noticeable amount that extends throughout various aspects of the platform.

Of course, it all comes back down to pricing because that’s the driving force with everything. Taking into account that this is the very first webOS 3.0 tablet on the market, it’s undoubtedly going to sport a premium price – but in all honesty, it doesn’t feel like a convincing $500 tablet. Needless to say, we’re confident that HP will refine the experience and knock out at least some of those kinks with future software updates, but in the meantime, we’d rather spend that hard earned money on something else like the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Software version of the reviewed unit:
webOS version: 3.0.0

HP TouchPad Video Review: