HP Touchpad review

There was great excitement in the office today as not one but two developer Touchpads arrived! Eliciting much joy with one of my colleagues in particular (she shall remain nameless)

Tech Specs:

HP webOS;
9.7-inch XGA capacitive, multitouch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color, 1024x768 resolution display;
Virtual keyboard;
Microsoft Exchange email with Microsoft Direct Push Technology, POP3/IMAP (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, etc.);
Integrated IM and SMS;
A-GPS (3G models only);
Front-facing 1.3-megapixel webcam for live video calling;
Light sensor, accelerometer, compass (magnetometer), and gyroscope;
Audio formats: DRM-free MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV, Video formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264;
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n with WPA, WPA2, WEP, 802.1X authentication; Bluetooth wireless technology 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support;
Either 16GB or 32GB internal storage;
Rechargeable 6300 mAh (typical) battery;
Charger/microUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed;
3.5mm stereo headset/headphone/microphone jack;
Internal stereo speakers and Beats Audio technology;
HP Touchstone for TouchPad;
Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU APQ8060 1.2GHz;
240x190x13.7mm;
740 grams

First impressions; it looks like an iPad 1 and it's a little weighty; but I wouldn't consider those bad things. It screams high quality which is exactly what you'd expect from a company like HP.

The shiny black casing has been well made and sits nicely in your hands. There are no sharp edges to be found anywhere on the Touchpad which is a step up from other tablets I've come across. It's impressive to look at but he grey HP logo on the back isn't doing it any favours.

A glossy silver logo would have looked far more appealing however the nay-sayers would have had more ammunition to call the Touchpad an iPad clone.

The display is bright and very responsive. I love the little ripples which appear after you touch anything on screen, whilst this isn't a useful feature per se it is a nice touch (get it? nice touch?)



The interface is responsive and snappy which is crucial and HP's claims that the Touchpad has "true multi-tasking" cannot be denied. The delay in operation of apps brought up from the background is minimal, far shorter than I have experienced on iOS devices.

It's pretty difficult to think of things I didn't like without being petty; I suppose the home button is a little small, the Beats Audio isn't as mind blowing as on the HP Envy and the app store is a little sparse in some areas.

That in itself is telling, if as a geek / reviewer / critic I need to really have a long hard think about negatives then the HP Touchpad lives up to the plaudits it's been receiving.

If it were down to the product alone then this would easily be amongst the front runners in the tablet market. Unfortunately that's not how the world works. Apple has created an entire lifestyle people buy into. Their products are inherently cool which is a major selling factor for many consumers. Can HP tap into that? Well the answer is a firm maybe. They have collaborated with some big names over the last year. Dr. Dre and other music producers could form the centre of a big push into Apple's core audience but one worries that it's all been done before.

Let's see more of this:


And less of this:


In summary; I'll need more than the hour I had to tell you what the HP Touchpad is like to live with but it ticks most of the boxes. It looks good, not prohibitively expensive, lightning fast interface and a strong brand behind it to release regular software updates.

Would I buy one? I'd be very very torn. It would probably depend on my mobile phone as touch to share is amazing but iPad or Playbook integration to my current smartphones would really sway me. Would I replace my laptop for one? Oh hell no. Well... not yet anyway. But I would stop and have a very long thing about it.

Check out touch to share in Dr. Dre's "I need a Doctor"