When all the attention lavished in relation to potential competitors to Apple iPad tablet, such as the Motorola Xoom ($ 599, 3.5 stars) and the RIM BlackBerry playbook ($ 499, 3 stars), HP webOS touchpad is based largely flown under the radar. This should change fairly quickly, though. HP, which has reportedly been planning since the beginning of the keyboard, for the acquisition of Palm over a year ago, did something unusual: the company was waiting until the product is ready to release. The touchpad is the opposite of scripts or Xoom, which were both originally published in the important features are missing. The trackpad, on the other hand, is a complete, well-designed and well-designed compressed thin operating system, and a unique approach to multitasking, and with it all its features enabled.
There is room for improvement, a more extensive selection and a face of the security camera would have been fine but the touchpad gives users a more enjoyable experience than any of the current wave of Android tablets honeycomb. IPad is not, but it is better not Apple tablet we've seen yet.Pricing Design
TouchPad currently comes with only Wi-Fi (16 GB, 32 GB or $ 499, $ 599). HP says the tablet is finally available on AT & T, but the connectivity details, price and timing are not yet announced.
Size 7.5 9.5 0.6 inches, the touchpad is almost twice as thick as the iPad 2, but otherwise the same size and the size of the screen. 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768 pixel touch screen LCD IPAD is responsible for the size and resolution. And it's the same aspect ratio is 4:3, and 16:09 longer and thinner tablets many, such as Motorola with Xoom. Screen surrounded by a logo-free, black flat frame, which is also a sense of driving a 1.3-megapixel camera lens and the Home button at the bottom. Glossy black plastic rear panel attracts fingerprints and have a little more than the HP logo, is a rear facing camera. The rounded side panels in the house a couple of controls and compressed connections: power on / wake, volume controls, 3.5mm headphone jack and connector micro-USB synchronization / charge cable. There are also a couple of built-in stereo speakers.
It's good to know that there are stereo separation here, but as usual with compressed speakers does not sound very good. As is typical (and unfortunate) the touch pad does not come with headphones, but do not receive a cleaning cloth and a USB sync cable that plugs into the included wall charger.
As for what's under the hood, the touchpad is the first tablet, we tested around the Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor at 1.2 GHz APQ8060. All Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets have so far used Nvidia's dual-core 1 GHz Tegra 2. A 1.2 GHz processor Qualcomm is more powerful in theory, but there is no point of reference applications, such as those used to test Android shelves now, so there is no way to prove it. In actual use, there was no difference in performance between the processor and other obvious comb TouchPad tablets. (More information on overall performance in a minute.) The touchpad also includes Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.
WebOS 3.0
WebOS 3.0 HP takes a fresh approach to perform multiple tasks, and this feature is at the heart of the user interface touchscreen impressive. All applications, browser windows, videos, photos and more, can be reduced to "map" in size with a downward shift or tap a Start button. When the map display mode (which is like the home screen is set), you scroll through the thumbnails of all live applications, a window or file you open. To close an application, just flip the card, and fly on your desktop.
Fast NOTE: HP has released an update to use the touchpad webOS 3.0.2, the beginning of August. Update Fixed several minor performance issues, such as a scroll delay and automatic correction. And 'slightly improved, the touchpad HTML5 video playback (more on that below). It does not do much to solve the touchpad to two main areas of performance problems: applications, will take several seconds to load, and a significant delay between the time by turning the device vertically and horizontally. These questions seem to be an experienced software and hardware, and HP software, hopefully correct.
The map display on the main screen / multi-task in itself is a clever way for dealing with simultaneous functions of the tablet, but the stack of the function is one of the most useful webOS towers. If you browse several lines of windows, or can be displayed side by side for easy travel, or be stacked on each other. All this is done with simple smear and it is difficult to stack or unstack accidentally cards. Any card can be stacked with any other card, and stacking a picture with a note, email and website is very simple. IOS Apple that allows applications to group them into folders, but everything you see in these cases is the icons that represent applications that put into them. In webOS, you know what the current window. If you have a presentation that is working and you have to do some research online and to organize some pictures of her, all these different windows photos, Word documents, sites, everyone can sit in a cell and tidy.
It is easily the best available multi-tasking we've seen in a day tablet operating system. Honeycomb on a shelf, is (very) small snapshots of applications running on multiple taskbar. In webOS, the letters are large enough to see what they contain, is a map for each file or window instead of one for each application, and maps can be organized to a degree that neither the honeycomb, or IOS allows .
Visually, webOS is probably most similar to RIM BlackBerry Tablet OS. Despite our overall assessment of the playbook released too soon, the tablet operating system is well designed and easy on the eyes. IOS Apple remains the most intuitive user interface of the pills, but it is clear that Apple will introduce more real-time views multitasking and organizational tools in future versions of IOS. Honeycomb is very customizable, but feel full of times. WebOS 3.0 is a much cleaner approach. It is almost ironic, since one of the strengths of Google was to rethink the way users approach the organization, such as conversations in Gmail. The batteries are fully Googlian webOS.
A toolbar site at the bottom of the screen. It comes with a Web browser (browser), E-mail, calendar, messages, photos and videos preinstalled with an arrow that opens the launch window. This is where you find all your applications, downloads, Options menu, and access to HP App Catalog. The bar can be customized to show what applications you want, but it has a maximum of five programs at once.
The notifications are designed to use less invasive alternative to the touchpad on the tables honeycomb, but the end result is very similar: When you receive an email message, a notification window appears in the margin, not in the middle of the screen, where you could lock the content (which is the way to deal with communications iPad). WebOS groups, such as notifications, so you can navigate through a variety of subject lines in e-mail notification area.Apps
Implementation of the tablet can be a bit of a hassle at first you end up logging multiple accounts on several occasions, when you open certain programs or perform certain tasks for the first time, but it's all in the name for all your applications to work together device, or HP has described, "synergy". Your photos on Facebook, for example, will appear in your photo gallery, as if they are on the device, but we will discuss in more detail later.
HP holds the number of preinstalled programs on the TouchPad fortunately low: Web (webOS browser), Email, calendar, messages, memos, Quickoffice (the webOS corresponding to the non-preloaded iWork from Apple), Adobe Reader, Maps (and not from Google, from Bing!), calls for contacts, phone and video, Music, Photos & Videos, Amazon Kindle, Facebook and YouTube.
WebOS Facebook application, developed internally by HP associated engineering tools using Facebook is one of the largest deployments of mobile phone we've seen Facebook. With the influx of new movement patterns, has a style Flipboard full screen, tiled so are your friends, with a map of where they are checked with places, an interface similar to e-mail and calendar access. Of course, you can mark things to write on the walls and read the notes to your heart's content. And integration over your Facebook photos in the gallery of the tablet, with the opportunity to comment on the photos section and not directly on the Facebook application itself is a great feature. It would be nice to see Facebook Chat, but overall a very strong experience.Under Facebook tab in the start menu download the catalog of the HP is your portal to the selection of applications to purchase HP and unloading.
HP has a lot of work to do if it wants to compete with the selection of Apple App Store for iPad, but the company made a big effort out of the door. There are about 260 programs designed specifically for TouchPad, but others are due to launch (HP promises 300) and it is more than the number of honeycomb few specific programs for major developers, even months after hitting the tablets Honeycomb market.
At the upper end of the spectrum are applications such as AngryBirds HD and USA Today, both are free, and to look and work well on the TouchPad. Time, People and Sports Illustrated were not available for us to test, but HP says they are ready for launch. We were pleased to see some high-end games like Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Glu are graceful shot 3D Glyder second is a Twitter client, the venerable (and excellent) Spaz, which is based in TweetDeck and offers a landscape of columns custom search. But other social networks in particular those gaps management based on the location of which have true navigation applications. Instead of the navigation application, you get the odd beat traffic, providing aspects of an application traffic-free driving directions. (Wi-Fi only TouchPad does not include GPS, but AT & T version of the tablet.) You will be able to buy and download music and movies from HP big film shortly after its launch, according Representatives from HP.
The big question: Are great developers take the time to make versions of their applications WebOS? Apple has had no trouble attracting developers to create applications IPAD, but Google's Android Market currently has a small selection, less regulated honeycomb specific applications. HP seems to fall somewhere between Apple and Google in monitoring the implementation of the option. Applications are divided into two segments: the standard catalog of homebrew applications. In Home Brew, users are told they are off the reservation, downloading applications that may not meet HP's aesthetics and ideas. Apple, HP gently push developers to create presentations that are similar in appearance, operation, and feels that preloads applications on the HP device.
E-mail app on the touchpad is good, but it is no different, and if you use Gmail, integration honeycomb is better than any other platform. App TouchPad can download email messages to multiple accounts from a variety of electronic mail services and displays the mailboxes or individual or a single inbox for all your emails. The app, which most of the HP embedded in programs, using an interface window: A displays your folders, one second of your inbox and selected third messages. You can display or hide panes at will by dragging the corner open or closed, so if you want to concentrate on writing your e-mail or see all mailboxes at once, you can. Buttons for frequently used functions are easily accessible, and the ability to arrange the cards in the mail, and therefore open several at once is a nice feature.
Web browsing
Like its main competitors tablet, HP knows how to make a simple intuitive web browser. Go to sites or bookmarks or browsing history is as simple as playing time in the field or a dropdown menu. Any menu that appears you can easily hide again with a quick change. Open a new window takes a single touch, instantly, minimizing the window is and create a new one, which sits atop a stack of windows web. The function of the battery is useful in this case, you can see several windows open at once, and is relatively easy to open a window, even in the middle of a stack of depth. There seems no limit to the number of windows can be stacked, but HP would not give a real number. (I managed to stack up to eight windows, each site will open in your browser.)
The video playback in your browser to accept is the highest we've seen the tablet yet, but it is not the softest. Regardless of the fact that it was faced with HTML5, Flash 10.3, the touchpad has been able to download and play any video file, we jumped. There were virtually no problems getting any site to play videos, and animations throughout the site loads fine. IPad 2 does not have the Flash player, and in our tests, some of the honeycomb panels were the questions on the video to pay some of the most important sites like ESPN.com. However, the video often has had time to buffer, and choked up pretty easily. Embedded video in blogs Radiohead (exception BBC) stuttered several times during playback, in my tests. Videos ESPN.com 's built-in play without problems, but wait until after it had been buffered for long.
Watch video on the Web on any mobile device is always a delicate matter, and although the touch pad does a good job navigating the modern landscape of HTML5 and Flash, it does not feel the same as watching Web videos on a computer with a robust connection .
The image quality is an indication of overall performance of the browser touchpad. Our tests of the browser, the ability to make the touchpad JavaScript and HTML were below 2 or iPad Galaxy Tab 10.1 ($ 449, 3.5 stars). Simple sites, the differences are not so significant, but the heavy graphics or video-based websites, you get slower as the iPad, 2, or tab Galaxy.
Messaging and Video Chat
There is a universal mail application, built-in 3.0 webOS simply called e-mail. That lets you chat with MSN, Google, Skype or Yahoo, and integrates all your accounts in one window and the buddy list. Not allowed to do much more to discuss and initiate Skype calls. (If you have a phone webOS can also use the application to send text messages.) Is not as powerful or easy to use as Google Talk honeycomb, but hopefully a third-party action to overcome e-mail application fairly quickly.
The only 1.3 megapixels on the TouchPad is clearly designed for video chat and more. Video chat is done in an application called minimal, but useful, telephone and video is only skin Skype application. If you have a phone webOS can use the touch screen to make and receive calls, but otherwise going to use Skype. You can buy Skype credit and use it to call landlines, or to make audio and video calls to other Skype users. Video chat works well, but only in portrait mode. Despite the accelerometer of the tablet, the camera does not rotate and the Skype application, so neither side shows if your TouchPad is held in landscape mode. Compared to other tablets of the front lens, however, the general resolution and picture quality is pretty much par for the course. The real problem is the lack of a camera looking back.
If it is true that none of the rear-facing cameras currently on the shelves (let alone the low-resolution camera on the iPad 2) is no match for even a standard point-and-shoot They have almost all cameras of a certain quality. TouchPad foreclosure of a real camera is a dubious distinction. Fortunately, HP compensates for this with several other positive features and implementations.
Music, video and photos
HP music is pretty basic application, one has a good future for all your music and audio books. You can create playlists directly on the tablet and the touchpad has a Cover Flow feature lets you type scroll through the album art and play music in a much more visually appealing. (Cover Flow started with iTunes, and yet it is available on the IPAD.) If you are an iTunes user, you can use an application called HP Play as a solution to synchronize your iTunes library on the touchpad. Download the application on your computer, scans your iTunes library to find files and playlists, and copy of your TouchPad. If you use an iPod or iPhone, in addition to its touch screen is a key feature.Photos and videos that exist in the same application, simply called Pictures & Videos. Gallery application is like the honeycomb in this regard, but the name is a gift this time.
Organization other than the strange, Photos & Videos are a powerful around. As mentioned above, the "synergy" is a brilliant concept with webOS. Connect all your different social networks and online accounts to your tablet nowhere more highlighted than in the photos and videos around. Images can be added via a computer, but most likely connect to one of the dozens of services that HP supports, from Facebook and Photobucket, and Snapfish with Dropbox. If you add, for example, a Gmail account for mail, photos, Picasa will be added to the program as well.
Performance
All praise to the user interface is slightly attenuated webOS 3.0 by the occasional tendency of the system a little nervous. Angry Birds Whether you play video or display, prepare stutter sometimes in action and reading. This does not mean that the tablet is slow: if you click on a map, it expands, more or less immediate, and the result of rapid movements in equities. The grace of movement, however, when moving a document, is not as fluid is that it is a text iPad can slide or stand, sometimes lags behind the speed of your scanner. The marks on the screen where it is written with a small dot disappear quickly. Sometimes the point is not exactly where you want to take advantage of menu item selection is not as infallible as it is in the iPad, and may require a few taps. As mentioned above, we have no foolproof method to test the processor due to lack of applications in the catalog of HP application.
TouchPad, by virtue of being an HP product, offers features such as wireless printing, which works right out of the box. HP officials say nearly 90 percent of HP printers connected made within three years will be to work with the print function wireless touchpad, which is a button that appears in the e-mail, the application of documents, and others. Touch and you're presented with a list of printers on your network.
HP rates the battery life of the touchpad for about 8 hours of Web browsing, and 9 hours of video playback. Our battery test, which leaves the Wi-Fi, while the playback of continuous video loop, has produced a result of 5 hours and 26 minutes.
Conclusions
HP TouchPad is the most valuable competitor in the top-of-the-heap-tablet Apple iPhone. There is room for improvement, but WebOS 3.0 is the secret ingredient that IOS has always been, and that Google has a honeycomb still seems to miss: It 's fun and easy to use. "Cards" and "batteries" are not only a new approach to multitasking, but the organization and enables the integration of HP Synergy useful files such as photos, collected a series of collections for Facebook and compressed photo gallery itself.
Remains to be seen, a budding film space to mimic the type of MP3 player, and eventually dissolve, except for a strong leader, or if the kingdom of the tablets is just emerging and have yet to fully emerge. HP touchpad HD reminds me of Microsoft Zune ($ 219.99, 4.5 stars), and is very solid unit, but may be too late to the game. We have already seen two iPads, and the third is likely to reach the touchpad sometimes nine months birthday. HP can convince the developers to make sense enough for applications on the touch pad allows the tablet to reach its full potential in nine months? I hope so.
In addition, you will find many applications designed for smartphones webOS before. And since Apple's iPhone applications on the iPad, who work but do not meet the screen of the tablet. Unlike Apple, tap-to-zoom solution, however, not to increase applications from HP, but the screen of a cell the size of the window in the center of the screen.
By default, the images of organization and application videos, however, leaves much to be desired, the contents are sorted by file type, when photos and videos to sit next to each other, and your MP4 movies to live somewhere other than the AVI movies. You might want to take some time to create and maintain the structure of folders when you connect the pad to the computer, because it is the only way to find things easily.
