Nice OS, shame about the hardware
Apple, please take note of WebOS' keyboard layout - and of the operating system's drop-down menu that provides direct access key functions. iOS 5 really should be offering this.
iOS users will envy WebOS' handy drop-down key settings menu
HP likes to emphasise Just Type..., WebOS' joined-up search system, but iOS does that and Android has Google search, which is probably more useful to most folk. Generally, it's easy enough to look in Contacts if you know you're trying to find a contact, but there's no harm in keying in someone's name first.
HP has to be commended for avoiding the easy way and just chucking out yet another non-descript Android offering. God bless the good ship plurality and all who sail in her. Likewise, the company deserves kudos for choosing an odd, yet exactly right screen ratio.
But I suspect many punters won't get to try the TouchPad and WebOS in earnest simply because of the other issues, from the quirky performance of the hardware to the current paucity of key apps and services. I really like WebOS, but I won't buy a TouchPad because it will play too little of my content and – frankly – for the same money I can buy something else that will.
Verdict
HP creates a great generation-one tablet and brings it to market right when the generation-two rivals are hitting the scene. If you dislike Apple's arrogance and Android's Windows-of-the-tablet-world strategy, you'll live with the TouchPad's media playback limitations, revelling in it as a neat internet tool. If you're are WebOS die-hard, ditto
But though the TouchPad has many qualities, and would have made a great iPad rival a year ago, today it's too behind-the-curve at too high a price to thoroughly recommend. ®
Thanks very much to PC World for the review sample
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HP TouchPad 32GB WebOS tablet
COMMENTS
@Si 1
HP's website and others confirm its 1024x768, so it is 4:3
And a damn good thing too. I've been looking at the Android tablets, and each one has been a case "ooh, that's shiny! but its 16:9 so its useless". Its like all the manufacturers have gone "well, we need to diffentiate our products from Apple's how can we do that? I know, the iPad isn't crippled, so if we cripple ours, that'll make it different and people will buy it..."
@James
Of course it's not a good idea to rush stuff out that's buggy.
The rest of the manufacturers seem to be doing that though - and *still* selling units.
What HP should have not done is wait to see if the market takes-off, and then take their time to release a machine that's a year behind their main competitors.
What HP needed to do was release a machine that can directly compete with today's top-end machines. And since most people on reg seem to hate the fruity company so much, it's got to be really easy hasn't it?
What? It actually isn't? Even a company as big as HP can't do it? Blimey - maybe Apple aren't so crap after all?
Is it really?
If you take a fondleslab that is 29.7cm long, the length of a sheet of A4, at 4:3, the width would be 22.275cm. At 16:9 the width would be 16.7cm. A4 paper is 21cm wide, much closer to the 4:3 ratio.
"I don't want a gadget, I want a portable computer."
So buy a netbook then.
Depends on what you want to use it for?
16:9 works much better if you are using an RDP application to connect to a remote server, or watching practically any video since it's all wide screen these days.
Since I do both regularly on my Asus Transformer, a 16:9 aspect ratio suits me personally far better than 4:3 would.
