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HP TouchPad: Review

By: , 6/30/2011 3:00 pm | 37 comments

Whew… we finally made it. The official TouchPad review. If you’ve been keeping up with us, we have published almost an hour of video goodness going over every single aspect of the TouchPad that we could think of. [If we missed something, let us know! - Ed]

So now it is time to sum it all up… give our final thoughts on the device and what we think it brings to the table. Let’s start with…

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Hardware


Most of the people who have seen me carrying around the TouchPad have asked if it was an iPad. After a quick inward sigh I explain, “No, in fact it is the HP TouchPad and if you call it an iPad again, I am gonna @#$@# cut you!”

All kidding aside, there is a reason people think it is an iPad: it looks exactly like one. Seriously, it is the exact same size as the original iPad. It even weighs almost exactly the same. The good news is that the TouchPad will work with almost all iPad accessories. The bad news is, it doesn’t stand out in a crowd.

Inside, the TouchPad has a dual-core 1.2 Ghz processor and 1 GB RAM. Is it the most powerful tablet on the market? No, but it is plenty on-par with most of the modern offerings. What these specs really mean is that it has the horsepower to get things done. webOS runs smoothly (for the most part) and that’s what matters. We were able to get anywhere between 30 – 40 full 3.0 and 2.x apps up at one time. That should be plenty, don’t you think?

One question you may be asking is… “how fast is it?” Simply put, it’s very good. But not great. As mentioned before, everything runs pretty smoothly (albeit with the occasional stutter), but the boot time is pretty poor – around a minute and a half. (If you are a fan of webOS, then this won’t come as a surprise.) On the plus side, you will rarely notice it because you probably won’t boot your tablet what, more than once a week?

Another important hardware goody is the 1.3 megapixel front camera. This is, obviously, meant for video calling and with all of our tests it does a really great job (more on that later). And yes, it is important to note that there is not a rear camera. If you look at the pictures that come out of the rear camera on other tablets out there (ahem… looking at you, iPad 2), then you will probably agree that you aren’t missing much. The only downside I see is that the TouchPad can’t do any of the augmented reality stuff… boo.

The design of the TouchPad confuses us a bit. The Veer and the Pre 3 have this nice industrial look with stubby, shiny buttons and a to-die-for softtouch back. The TouchPad, on the other hand, is blindingly shiny on the back and slick as silk. Also, the buttons are pretty much flush. That’s not to say it makes the TP look bad, it’s just that I prefer the newer look of the Pre 3.

For a detailed look at the hardware, check out our Hardware Deep Dive

Software

Let’s come right out and say it. The #1 reason to buy a TouchPad is webOS. Period.

Many people have said that webOS is best on a tablet and 3.0 shows how true that statement is. All of the core apps have been rewritten to use the abilities of the TouchPad and each one of them shines… especially the e-mail app.

See an in depth look at all of the core features and apps in our Software Deep Dive.

All of the things you love about webOS are here and then some…

Synergy is the ability to bring all of your contacts from all of your accounts together into one place. This mainly is shown in email and the chat client. All of your accounts can be shown as a single inbox. In chat you can start a single conversation in a text message, move to facebook chat, skype chat, gTalk, and back to text messaging all from the same window.

Cards allow you to multitask better than any other OS period…even those who have tried to steal it. Version 3.0 allows for stacks, of course, and the added screen space just makes it look as good as it works.

Notifications have always been a strong part of webOS and 3.0 keeps the trend going. The new stacked notifications show up at the top and allow you to easily scan through all of your alerts without getting in the way.

Video calling is almost a requirement with tablets nowadays. The TouchPad comes with a full Skype client that lets you do not only video calls, but pure audio ones as well. In our experience, Skype works very well and, on a good connection, produces smooth video [see our hands on video here]. We did run into some issues getting it setup though. The sound kept cutting out. To fix it we had to do a hard erase on the device to set it back to default. We learned later that this is a known issue that will be fixed with a launch day patch so you should never experience this.

Document editing…wait…nevermind, you can’t do that. At launch the TouchPad does not allow you to edit documents. Sure you can log into Google Docs from the browser, but that is a workaround, not a solution. QuickOffice comes loaded on the TP, but, as of now, it is largely nonfunctional. You can setup your Google Docs account, but it renders a new page for every single line in the document. Yeah, it is as good as it sounds. We know that HP and crew are working hard to get this up and running, but this ball was just too important to drop at this point in the game. No bueno.

Note: HP has notified us that an update to Quick Office to fix the Google Docs problem will be deployed soon. Editing MS Word and Excel documents are due “later this summer”

The web browser is great. It isn’t the fastest browser on the planet, but it renders most sites very nicely and has all of the features you might want on a browser including Flash. Contrary to popular belief, Flash isn’t dead. There are still a bajilliion sites out there that use Flash and I am happy to report that you can view all of them without any of the annoyances that usually comes with Flash on a mobile device. The 10.3 beta is smooth and fast. It has, without a doubt, the best performance I have ever seen on a mobile device.

The other apps that are baked into the TouchPad include:

  • Memos – This is just a bigger version of what was on 2.x. It is functional, but largely it gets a big “meh” from us.
  • Maps – This is a nice implementation of Bing. The necessity of such an app when it is Wifi only is a bit questionable. Even on the 3G/4G model I don’t really “get it”. It is very nice looking though.

  • Amazon Kindle - I have wanted a Kindle since the day they came out. I guess now I have one. The Kindle app is very functional if a bit utilitarian. You can do all the things you want to do. Bookmark pages, take notes, etc, but there isn’t a lot of pizzazz.
  • YouTube – This one is weak. If you open it up it immediately opens up a web browser to YouTube. Seems like a built in bookmark would have taken care of this.
  • Photos and Video – Yup, it shows photos AND video. You can share, print, pan and zoom and all the other stuff you would hope to do.
  • 50GB free storage from Box.net – We’d be remiss not to mention the fact that every single TouchPad owner will be granted 50GB of free online storage with Box.net. This is simply awesome-sauce.

See a walkthrough of all of the core apps in our Software Deep Dive!

Touch To Share

HP is making a big deal about Touch to Share (TTS) and for good reason…it is awesome. We were given a Pre 3 to test all this functionality out with and it really does work as well as you hope…mostly.

You can see how TTS works in our in depth look, but suffice it to say, the tech works because of a mix of some hardware and some software. There are coils built into the TP and the Pre 3 that allow them to create a connection simply by touching. Once the connection is established you can do some amazing things.

The functionality that HP calls Touch to Share is actually the weakest part of the tech. Currently it allows you to touch the Pre 3 to the TP and you can send a webpage from one to the other and vice versa. While this is a neat trick, it has limited usefulness. HP has hinted that this is just the beginning, and I truly hope it is because the possiblities for this tech are awesome. Imagine sending a photo from your phone to your tablet with just a tap…or even better, your friend’s tablet. Giving devs the ability to play with it in a future SDK would be the ultimate…who knows what they could come up with. The problem is that, for now, you can’t do any of that…you can just share URLs.

Let’s get past the gloom and talk about what is really cool about this tech. Once the devices are paired the TouchPad becomes an extension of the phone. If you get a call on the Pre 3, then you can answer it on the tablet. Same goes for text messages. Yup, it is as awesome as it sounds.

Check out our in depth article and a video of Touch to Share on a Pre 3!

Accessories

HP was kind enough to send us the Bluetooth keyboard and Touchstone charging system to play with. As we said in our review of the devices, they are almost a required purchase, especially the Touchstone.

The Touchstone allows the TouchPad to be what it was really meant to be. A completely wireless device. If you have a Touchstone, then you never have to plug it into your computer again (except, perhaps, for moving around a large number of files). The quality of the new Touchstone is just plain awesome and it doubles as a great stand. My one complaint is that you cannot remove the power cord from the back. I wish I could use my TS as just a great stand, but alas, the power cord is permanently attached to the back… puh.

The Bluetooth keyboard is also a great device. It is sleek and smooth, and is built specifically for webOS. It has features like a dedicated card view key, arrow keys to move around your cursor (although there were some apps that the arrow keys refused to work), a Just Type key and more. While the keyboard won’t wash your car, it does its job well without feeling too cramped.

See our in depth video and review of the Bluetooth keyboard and Touchstone charger!

The TouchPad at Work

Unlike other tablets in the industry that require a computer for initial setup, the TouchPad needs only to be connected to your profile and away you go. You can start working right away. Talk about business-friendly.

Indeed, HP has made it clear that they want the TouchPad to be a business friendly device, and, for the most part, they have succeeded. The email client as we said before works very well (though again, needs threaded messaging), and then there’s Box.net’s 50GB of free online storage as a major plus. But the Achilles heel to HP’s enterprise vision is the fact you can’t create or edit documents natively. We’ve already beaten that horse, but REALLY HP? Really?!

UPDATE: Our sources tell us document editing is coming within a couple weeks of launch, which helps… but we’ll still be shaking our heads until that functionality arrives.

Ok, so aside from that gaping hole, what else can it do? It can:

  • Support up to 16 Exchange accounts for one. An important feature for hard core users.
  • Use Citrix to access all of your virtualized enterprise apps
  • Use VPN to securely connect to your company’s network
  • HP Synergy: Combined messaging, combined email, linked contacts, layered calendars
  • Collaborate with colleagues using Google Docs or Box.net
  • Wireless printing to tens of millions of HP printers.

The potential for the TouchPad integrating into your work life is definitely there, but, for now, it is primarily just that… potential. Harping some more, the core task of any business user is document creation and editing. Google Docs and Citrix may serve as good stopgaps until native editing comes to the TouchPad, but until then, its hands are essentially tied for offline use.

In later articles we will be showing some of these more business-friendly features in more detail.

The TouchPad at Play

When it comes to playtime the TouchPad shows up much more strongly. Some of this we have already mentioned, but here are some things that make the TP a great device for consumers.

  • The full web allows you to view movies and play games using Flash.
  • Beats audio provides the best sound I have ever heard on a mobile device. No more tinny sound and distortion coming out of the speakers and the quality out of the headphone jack is simply awesome. Be sure to see our video and article explaining Beats and how it works in the TouchPad.
  • While the TouchPad won’t have the 50,000 apps of the iPad, the apps that it does have a top notch and look amazing. HP puts the number of TouchPad specific apps ready at launch somewhere around 300. In there you will find a lot of iPad games ported over and other great apps from some of our favorite developers. There is also a new Facebook app, a few good Twitter clients, and a simply stellar news reader application called Mosaic [Cheap plug... - Ed]. All in all there is no doubt that the App Catalog has a LONG way to go if it is ever going to help HP sell some devices, but it really isn’t a bad start. Be sure to check out our quick look at Pivot and the new app catalog design for the TouchPad.
  • Once again, the 50GB of free online storage from Box.net will come in handy for storing pretty much anything – music, pictures – without filling your tablet’s memory too quickly.

Wrapup

At $499/$599 it is important to know that you are spending your money wisely. From a hardware perspective there is no question that you are getting a quality device. The build quality stands equal to or better than any tablet currently on the market.

While there are bugs and a gaping hole or two in the software, there is no question that webOS is great on the TouchPad and will only get better as they update it over time.

We highly recommend the TouchPad for all of those looking for something a bit outside the norm. We have an upcoming article that goes in depth as to the similarities and differences between the iPad 2 and the TouchPad. Suffice it to say, if you are deciding between those two devices, then you need to decide what kind of tablet you are looking for and get the one that fits you best.

If, however, you are deciding between an Android tablet or this, then let me encourage you to take the time to test drive a TouchPad at your local retailer. I believe that the ease of use of webOS will win you over in the end.

The TouchPad represents another step in the reinvention of HP. At the end of this journey HP hopes to be a company synonymous with innovation and quality consumer devices. I believe that the TouchPad will serve them well in this regard. It isn’t a perfect device, but it doesn’t need to be. Its primary purpose is to relaunch webOS to consumers as a viable alternative to Android and iOS. I firmly believe it accomplishes this goal very well and am excited to see where the journey goes from here.

Pros

  • Quality hardware. Feels good in the hand.
  • webOS 3.0 is awesome.
  • Mark my words, Touch to Share is going to be the next thing all the other OSs steal from webOS.
  • Beats audio produces some of the best sound I have ever heard on a mobile device.
  • Flash 10.3 beta is the best mobile version of Flash period.
  • The Touchstone is just the coolest.
  • 50GB of FREE storage from Box.net on EVERY TouchPad is, in a word, awesome.

Cons

  • No native document editing. Really?! Never mind that it’s coming soon… it should be here now.
  • Touch-to-Share should share more than just URLs and pictures
  • Slow boot times
  • Some early bugs
Bottom Line
If you are looking for a tablet that doesn’t have a fruit on the back — heck, even if you are — you owe it to yourself to see a TouchPad in action. It is a great device that shows off the power of webOS in completely new ways.

Want more? Here is a recap of all of our TouchPad coverage!

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About David Baxter

David is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of webOSroundup. When not toiling away at WOR he is usually with his family, at church, building a website of some kind or another, or playing a video game. @davidbbaxter
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  • http://ignitionunlimited.com/ IGNTNUNLMTD

    Great review; thanks guys!

    • Brennie58

      Battery life????

  • Guest

    Phenomenal TouchPad coverage over the past 24 hours, you guys should be proud.

    • Louis fajad

      according to review, it will last up to 6 to 8 hours, continues browsing/ playing videos.

  • http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

    Well the Cons are less and not that severe, unlike CopyBook, so this is some good news, i hope the public will take it with stride.

  • Anonymous

    Good review. pretty intense. I like you reached out to HP like Topolsjy did over at ThisIsMyNext.com

  • Kurt V

    Unfortunately, this more positive review will not reach the masses.  Most of the major publications have rated the Touchpad “mediocre” at best compared to the iPad.  And it is the major publications that most people will read, not webOSRoundup’s.

  • Kurt V

    Unfortunately, this more positive review will not reach the masses.  Most of the major publications have rated the Touchpad “mediocre” at best compared to the iPad.  And it is the major publications that most people will read, not webOSRoundup’s.

  • Kurt V

    Unfortunately, this more positive review will not reach the masses.  Most of the major publications have rated the Touchpad “mediocre” at best compared to the iPad.  And it is the major publications that most people will read, not webOSRoundup’s.

  • Kurt V

    Unfortunately, this more positive review will not reach the masses.  Most of the major publications have rated the Touchpad “mediocre” at best compared to the iPad.  And it is the major publications that most people will read, not webOSRoundup’s.

  • Kurt V

    Unfortunately, this more positive review will not reach the masses.  Most of the major publications have rated the Touchpad “mediocre” at best compared to the iPad.  And it is the major publications that most people will read, not webOSRoundup’s.

  • Matt_99_hey

    Strangely I didn’t see any indication of the 50GB promotion from box in any of the reviews—what’s the deal with that David? Anything sneaky?

    • http://www.webosroundup.com/ DanR

      It’s being added into our coverage. We wrote a separate article about it here: http://goo.gl/OcctQ

      Thanks.

  • Matt_99_hey

    Strangely I didn’t see any indication of the 50GB promotion from box in any of the reviews—what’s the deal with that David? Anything sneaky?

  • Matt_99_hey

    Strangely I didn’t see any indication of the 50GB promotion from box in any of the reviews—what’s the deal with that David? Anything sneaky?

  • Matt_99_hey

    Strangely I didn’t see any indication of the 50GB promotion from box in any of the reviews—what’s the deal with that David? Anything sneaky?

  • Ty

    Why is this the only overall positive review of the TP I have seen? I read Gizmodo’s, Engadget’s, and Precentral’s before ending up here and none of them were glowing.  But this one glosses over the negatives and heaps praise. I’m confused…..

    • http://www.webosroundup.com/ David

      I think it is all a matter of perspective. Some people have run into issues with Flash. As the movies show, I have never seen that.

      Other people dinged the TP for not having apps…we knew going into this that it didn’t have a ton of apps. Dinging it for an expectation seemed odd. We mention it, but then we moved on.

      We are lovers of webOS and because of that we might be a bit more tolerant of some of the shortcomings that come with it. For instance, the slow boot. We talk about it, complain a bit, but, as we said in one of the videos, if the awesome multi-tasking and apps that are core to webOS requires a slow boot, then so be it.

      I don’t believe we glanced over the issues. We mention a lot of them and whined where necessary.

      Is this a perfect device? No. 
      Is it a good device worthy of your consideration? Absolutely.

      • Ty

        Thanks for the reply. I was stoked to read reviews today and overall was just left depressed. I’ll admit I was hoping for a homerun but expected a double. This sounds like a double afterall. The real ding to me was the lack of tentpole apps. I don’t see why HP couldn’t work out at least Netflix. Sigh… Thank God for homebrew.

        • http://www.webosroundup.com/ David

          The tent pole apps may indeed be coming…

          We have no inside knowledge on this, but I get the feeling there are some surprises left in store. I don’t want to get your hopes up because it is just a hunch. Time will tell.

          • http://thesmartphoneappreview.com Simon Burns

            I know of a couple of UK based tentpole-ish apps coming. I’d like to run hands on previews of them but HP wont send me a TouchPad before release date in the UK. The apps are UK-centric, but it does show that Hp have been courting app partners outside of the USA, which is a good sign of intent in anybodys book.

      • KV

        Agreed - many people get way to caught up in having all the latest and greatest gadgets, which means they are either too materialistic, or too worried about image and “what is cool” (I am certainly guilty of this far too many times). Of course I want a product that meets my needs, but do I need all of the latest bells and wistles?  No.  I recently purhcased a 2003 Expedition, and you know what, I love it!  It is eight year old, but it is perfect for me.  If the Touchpad is more comparable to the first iPad, I am ok with that, as long as there is not a fruit on the back.

      • http://twitter.com/Gary_WOR Gary Katzer-WOR

        Another thing is with all the video content you actually get to see how the device reacts to David’s inputs. They say a picture is worth 1000-words, well then what are 9-videos with nearly an hour of actual product demo worth? With just an article you can create perception, instill doubt or stoke the flame of raving fans but with the videos you can’t fake performance or cover-up issues. 

    • http://www.webosroundup.com/ David

      I think it is all a matter of perspective. Some people have run into issues with Flash. As the movies show, I have never seen that.

      Other people dinged the TP for not having apps…we knew going into this that it didn’t have a ton of apps. Dinging it for an expectation seemed odd. We mention it, but then we moved on.

      We are lovers of webOS and because of that we might be a bit more tolerant of some of the shortcomings that come with it. For instance, the slow boot. We talk about it, complain a bit, but, as we said in one of the videos, if the awesome multi-tasking and apps that are core to webOS requires a slow boot, then so be it.

      I don’t believe we glanced over the issues. We mention a lot of them and whined where necessary.

      Is this a perfect device? No. 
      Is it a good device worthy of your consideration? Absolutely.

    • http://www.webosroundup.com/ David

      I think it is all a matter of perspective. Some people have run into issues with Flash. As the movies show, I have never seen that.

      Other people dinged the TP for not having apps…we knew going into this that it didn’t have a ton of apps. Dinging it for an expectation seemed odd. We mention it, but then we moved on.

      We are lovers of webOS and because of that we might be a bit more tolerant of some of the shortcomings that come with it. For instance, the slow boot. We talk about it, complain a bit, but, as we said in one of the videos, if the awesome multi-tasking and apps that are core to webOS requires a slow boot, then so be it.

      I don’t believe we glanced over the issues. We mention a lot of them and whined where necessary.

      Is this a perfect device? No. 
      Is it a good device worthy of your consideration? Absolutely.

  • Ty

    Why is this the only overall positive review of the TP I have seen? I read Gizmodo’s, Engadget’s, and Precentral’s before ending up here and none of them were glowing.  But this one glosses over the negatives and heaps praise. I’m confused…..

  • Raun

    Thanks for the review. I’ll probably wait for the 7″ model, but the reviews are all fairly favorable for hardware that was Win7 mobile ready last year. This is not an exceptionable piece of hardware. If they can ever marry one to webos and TTS video to a large webos enabled display over LTE, the sky is the limit. Right now, the limits are all too many.

  • Anonymous

    David, hats off to you sir, great review well balanced..  lets hope the webos team deal with these bugs ASAP.

  • zee

    Can you move the notifications to the bottom of the screen? For me, it makes for less hand movement just like on my Pre2. Nice job on a very thorough review.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t get me wrong, I like reading a positive review but there are a couple of facts I picked out from the precentral review (and cited by others) that leave me disheartened:

    Two that stand out:
    - Some “apostrophe words” aren’t auto-corrected (e.g. “isnt”, “doesnt” etc)
    - You can’t move the tabs/pages, you can’t rename them, and you can’t add or delete them

    Can these be fixed in a future over-the-air update? Of course. Are they show stoppers? Absolutely not.

    So why am I picking on them? Well that’s simple: webOS 2.0 already addressed these concerns which were present in webOS 1.x. Why have they returned in webOS 3.0!? Yes, I know this is a “new” tablet-friendly OS, but I won’t accept any excuses for these omissions as they already had them! It absolutely baffles me.

    It shows a lack of continuity between products and it’s the start of what could be the dreaded “fragmentation” problem. I had my suspicions this might happen when the gesture area was ditched and this doesn’t leave me with a great deal of hope either.

    For the record, I’m a pre- user from day one over in the UK. I love my ageing webOS 2.0 meta-doctored phone and I champion webOS to anyone I meet. I’ve watched as the webOS faithful have started to lose faith and thought “gees… be patient, good things will come” but right now, as much as it pains me to say it, even I’m starting to lose faith.

    • Dan Donovan

      webOS 3.0 has probably been in development for about a year.  My guess is it was forked from 1.4.X, not 2.0, which had a different development team at the time. webOS 2.X has been development resource starved for the past 60 days in-lieu of webOS 3.X.  This is probably why Pre 3 was delayed and we haven’t seen an update for the unlocked Pre 2.  I expect that HP has or will very quickly refocus resources so that webOS 3.++ be on Touchpad, Opal, Pre 3, Veer and (hopefully) Pre 2 ASAP.

      • Anonymous

        I’m sure there are reasons for why it’s ended up this way and what you suggest may very well be true, but the fact that there are already these inconsistencies doesn’t rest well with me – could they not have at least used the same “auto-correct engine”?

        Couple this with the recent news that the gesture area won’t be used on “some” phones, and I think we find ourselves getting ever-closer to the fragmentation problem (if we aren’t already in it).

        Hopefully this is just a temporary blip while they look to “merge” webOS 2.0 and 3.0.

  • Callie

    Why aren’t they releasing the pre3 at the same time?
    It seems if the syncing the two is such a great funtion they would release at the same time.
    I am anxious for the pre 3!!!
    Does anyone have incite into when it will come out and who the carrier will be?

    David I love your reviews and will be there tonight :)

    Thanks

  • http://thesmartphoneappreview.com Simon Burns

    This is the very best review of the TouchPad I’ve seen so far, well done guys :)

  • http://twitter.com/ApMik Aploe Miktona

    Regarding the bulk and thickness, this is what iSupply has just had to say:
    ” “We noticed there’s a gyroscope chip and an accelerometer, but we couldn’t find any GPS chips,” added Rassweiler. “Plus when we looked at the design we noticed there seems to be a lot of breathing room inside to add additional parts without having to change the design.
    It becomes apparent that, though the TouchPad’s thick frame (compared to the iPad) could be slimmed down, HP chose, instead, the possibility of adding new features as time went by, so as to not have to revise everything too often.”Personally, I wish HP had decided to slim the thing down even if by only a couple of milometers.  Regardless of actual user experience, comparisons with the competition count and HP is taking a huge gamble here.  But maybe that is just the HP philosophy.  Shame.  But the target market for HP is really corporate, where the employers do not have that much say in what they are given… So maybe that has been the right decision…

  • http://twitter.com/ApMik Aploe Miktona

    Question for a non-HP printer owner who has bought a TP:  Can it print onto non-HP printers?  Such as those made by Canon and Epson?  Sorry if this sounds silly given that the word “printer” is always preceded with “HP” when talking TouchPads, but it would be good to have confirmation.

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