HP TouchPad Review
Launched last year, the HP TouchPad is one of the most interesting tablets out there that is running on a graceful operating system and has a very unique approach to multi-tasking. The tablet measures 7.5 x 9.5 x 0.6 inches which means that it is almost twice as thick as Apple’s iPad 2. It comes with a 9.7-inch display that has a resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
The display of the TouchPad is surrounded by a flat black bezel that houses the front facing 1.3 mpx camera up top and the Home button located below. The back panel is wearing a glossy black plastic which attracts a lot of fingerprints. The tablet’s rounded side panels come with a bunch of controls, such as microUSB port, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, volume controls and a Power/Wake button. You will also notice the pair of integrated stereo speakers but the sound coming out of these is not something to write home about.
HP TouchPad (Source: blogcdn.com)
The HP TouchPad is powered by a dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 processor running at 1.20 GHz, which in theory is more powerful than the dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor used for Honeycomb tablets. Also on board you will find Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.
The tablet is running on HP’s webOS 3.0 which offers a very nice approach to multitasking. Everything from browser windows to photos and applications can be minimized to “card” size by doing a downward swipe or by tapping the Home button. When you are in card-viewing mode, you will have to scroll through live thumbnails of every application, file or window that you have open. Closing the application can be done by flicking the card upward.
HP TouchPad (Source: ipad-site.net)
The music application of the HP TouchPad is quite basic, offering a nice-looking conduit to all of your music files and audiobooks. You have the possibility to create your own playlists and it also has a Cover Flow-like feature which allows you to scroll through album art and play your favorite music in a more attractive way.
Built in the webOS is an universal messaging application which will let you chat using Skype, Yahoo, Google or AIM and can integrate all of your accounts into one window and buddy list. The single 1.3 megapixel camera has been designed mostly for doing video chats which can be done through a skinned Skype application. Unfortunately there’s no rear-facing camera on board, as opposed to the vast majority of the tablets out there.
The battery of the TouchPad has been rated by HP to last for approximately 8 hours of Internet surfing and 9 hours of video playback which is on the average side.
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