"To contend with its pomaceous cousin, the HP TouchPad has an excellent entertainment capacity: the addition of Beats Audio makes this the best sounding tablet available."
Karim Beerahee
We have yet another young upstart tablet ready to vie for the iPad’s throne: the HP TouchPad brings some new features to tablet market, and certainly corners some unique territory. For those of you adamantly refusing to join the cult of Apple, this is one of the best alternatives out there. A lot of the design is borrowed from HP’s smart phone the Pre, which gives it a very different feel to the iPad.
What we like best
This tablet features Touchstone technology, allowing you to transfer between smartphone and tablet by touching the two together. If you’re walking into the office taking a call you can switch to video conferencing on your tablet quickly, making full use of its webcam and exceptional speakers. This device will also work for receiving text messages and shifting websites between devices for a larger screen or a more handheld one.
The HP WebOS has full Wi-Fi access which grants you full access to the Internet since it’s compatible with FlashPlayer and HTML5. This is one of the best tablets for browsing, as with its Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, loading times are kept relatively short.
The HP TouchPad is also great for general tablet use. It has the capacity to stack apps like tabs, and to be able to switch between them with a tap or swipe is a great feature. The HUD displays notifications without interrupting your workflow. The search capacity for the HP WebOS is a more efficient way of navigating the tablet: rather than scanning through apps to find the right icon you can search to update a status or open up an email to be written through the search function.
To contend with its pomaceous cousin, the HP TouchPad has an excellent entertainment capacity: the addition of Beats Audio makes this the best sounding tablet available. HP has launched their MovieStore, powered by RoxioNow, so you can quickly download movies or TV shows for those long journeys.
What we like least
There are a fair few grumbles about the HP App store, but although it’s not as developed as the Apple one, you get most of the necessaries so we found little to complain about there. What was more disappointing was the lack of 3G. We’re getting greedier and greedier with our internet demands, and it is no longer a wonder of the ages, but just a source of grave depression when we’re out of range for a decent connection.
The competition between tablet manufacturers is still pretty fierce. We wouldn’t deem this an iPad killer, but it is heavy competition. The high standard web browser makes this a decent tablet and the addition of Beats Audio tips the scale in the HP TouchPad’s favour, but in terms of branding, Apple have the advantage of a strong following so without an undercutting price it’s not likely the TouchPad will unseat the iPad. Nevertheless, as a viable alternative you need look no further then the HP TouchPad Assembly line.
Processor Speed
1.2 GHz
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU
RAM
Up to 256 Mb
Screen Size
9.7 inch
Graphics
A-GPS
Hard Drive Storage
Up to 32 Gb
Battery
rechargeable 6300 mAh
Multimedia
1.3MP facing webcam
Internal stereo speakers and Beats Audio
light sensor
Accelerometer
Compass
Gyroscope
Virtual Keyboard
Ports
Headphone jack
Charger USB with 2.0 High Speed
Weight & Size
(W) 190 x (D) 13.7 (H) 240 mm
0.74 Kg
Connectivity
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
Operating System
HP WebOS
HP TouchPad, a tablet to make Apple tremble, this device is designed strictly as an alternative to the iPad, the HP TouchPad has some unique territory of its very own that could sway purchasers away from the tyranny of the iPad.
HP TouchPad
HP TouchPad is pretty much the only tablet that has an excellent sound system, HP’s relationship with Beats Audio has well and truly paid off, the HP TouchPad makes for an excellent music and video player, with HP’s MovieStore now available you can get your favourite films and TV shows on a decent device to take out in public, or watch on a plane.
HP TouchPad is also graced with the fantastic HP WebOS, this grants excellent browsing speeds, provided you have the right signal, unfortunately there is no trace of 3G to be had with the HP TouchPad but it does support Flash Player and HTML5 so it vastly outdoes the Android Honeycomb in that sense.
If you want to find out more about its features, read the PC Site HP TouchPad review.
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