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HP TouchPad?

radiogoober said:
Haha, you're trying hard to defend a horrible purchase! Even a fanboy can't say anything good about it :)
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It's not a horrible purchase, I'm very happy with it.

And there are plenty of good things to say about it. The UI, notifications and browser are lightyears ahead of the iPad. Even iOS 5 will be behind in those respects. Plus the homebrew software will be outstanding as it is on the phones.

I didn't buy it to be cool, trendy or for a half-mystical experience. I bought it for its operating system and good internal hardware. ;)
 
I did buy one afterall.......

I had Palm products before I got my first iPhone in Sept, 2007. My phone then was a Treo 750 and I liked it a lot. This whole webOS thing really interests me and I think the future is bright for this with HP writing the checks.

That being said I would not give up my iPad 2 for anything. However, as some of the posters have stated, I do like some of the webOS features and the tablet itself. It will be interesting to see what happens as webOS develops.

When I got home last night from Best Buy and started to play with the TouchPad I was not sure. I'm still not certain if I'm keeping it but have 14 days to decide. I used it more this evening and the more I use it the more I like it. I have not experienced the things listed in some of the reviews. I'm not a power user and have had a good experience with it so far.

I like to play with technology and try different platforms. No one is paying for my electronic toys but me so as long as my wife doesn't mind, I do as I see fit. I can definitely see myself using both of my tablets going forward if I decide to keep the TouchPad. I like what I see so far. I have always like the iPad and will continue to do that!
 
I can see WebOS 3.0+ becoming more popular over time. It's still new but there's a lot of potential there and it will evolve just like future HP tablets will.
 
bowlerman625 said:
I did buy one afterall.......

I had Palm products before I got my first iPhone in Sept, 2007. My phone then was a Treo 750 and I liked it a lot. This whole webOS thing really interests me and I think the future is bright for this with HP writing the checks.

That being said I would not give up my iPad 2 for anything. However, as some of the posters have stated, I do like some of the webOS features and the tablet itself. It will be interesting to see what happens as webOS develops.

When I got home last night from Best Buy and started to play with the TouchPad I was not sure. I'm still not certain if I'm keeping it but have 14 days to decide. I used it more this evening and the more I use it the more I like it. I have not experienced the things listed in some of the reviews. I'm not a power user and have had a good experience with it so far.

I like to play with technology and try different platforms. No one is paying for my electronic toys but me so as long as my wife doesn't mind, I do as I see fit. I can definitely see myself using both of my tablets going forward if I decide to keep the TouchPad. I like what I see so far. I have always like the iPad and will continue to do that!
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Be interested to hear your experience with Flash sites,nand how slow the HP takes to reorient itself from landscape to portrait and back again, plus delays in opening various apps. Is there a real market place to buy apps yet and if so, how many are atually useful (able to read M$ docs, photo editors, Zite equivalent, Splashtop equivalent, etc...)

If it can't really do anything other than surf the web or have neat little transitions, I think I'm gonna have to pass. The ,ultitude of apps that enhance my daily life and things i like to do are what make my ipad so useful. If a tablet can't enhance mydaily activities, it might as well be a paperweight.
 
Mac.World said:
[...] apps [...] are what make [a tablet] so useful. If a tablet can't enhance my daily activities, it might as well be a paperweight.
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Slight edits for emphasis.

I think it's fantastic that HP and RIM and others are taking a crack at the tablet market. Sure, Apple is king today -- but once upon a time Palm was king of PDAs, then Compaq & Microsoft really gave them a run with the iPaq line. The Treo's were pretty good, but flawed, RIM ate their lunch in the smartphone market until the iPhone ate everyone's lunch.

At the end of the day it's what the gadget helps you accomplish. Whose name is on it is meaningless. Hardware specs and OS and UI are pointless if you can't do what you need to do easily and efficiently. Today's king is the ipad. Tomorrow? We'll see.
 
fertilized-egg said:
The irony is that, widgets and customization are, I personally find, really toys that do not really help productivity much. Think about it: nobody achieves anything serious through widgets on their desktop computers. People open their Microsoft Word, Excel, etc to do their work and open their Outlook/Thunderbird to do email. The business and productivity are all about what apps you have and nothing to do with widgets or customization of desktop screens.
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Currently I cannot just look at my iPhone or iPad and see my appointments, incoming emails, texts, and social feeds in one place. Perhaps iOS 5 will change that, and I'm looking forward to it, but to me that is the sexiest feature of Android and WebOS. I like to see those items all in one place, not have to launch my calendar to see my upcoming appts., then launch into email to see if my partner responded to me, and then check my SMS app for message and launch Facebook to see my social stuff. Very cumbersome and not smart.
 
AZREOSpecialist said:
Currently I cannot just look at my iPhone or iPad and see my appointments, incoming emails, texts, and social feeds in one place.
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So basically you want your iPad to act more like a phone. That is a fair criticism but that doesn't really have much to do tablets which, due to their sizes, inherently don't get carried around in pockets and people do not use their tablets check their schedules, incoming emails, texts(??) and social feed all the time - those are more of a phone's job.

Also it's just my personal experience, but I don't find the widgets to be particularly helpful in those situations since I always end up doing email in a mail app, texts in a text app, reading social feed in a social network app, etc, etc. The iPad, even in iOS4, still does tell you if you have an email or social feed in one screen, although not very informative in one glance. You see on your "grid of icons" to check if you have a little red dot indicating new updates, and if so then you go into the app to see the content. How is that so difficult?

And again, you've asserted iPad isn't good for "business and productivity" because of the lack of widgets and desktop customization, yet all you gave was how an iPad should act more like a phone. Everybody I know of gets their "business and productivity" stuff done through apps, be it creating documents, editing charts or uploading pictures somewhere, and I don't imagine you get your productivity done on a tablet through widgets or having a different arrangement of icons.
 
No they want their iPad to act like a pim and day planner, it is ridiculous to assume that it should not cover those roles as it doesn't fit in a pocket. Penty of people got by for years without a pocketable day planner.*

These features, the at a glance see your day stuff, should have been present from day one..and also no amount of 'well I don't see a need for it' can justify not providing your customers with options.
 
I jumped in with both feet today. Sold the ipad 2 on craigslist and am going with a TouchPad.
 
h00ligan said:
No they want their iPad to act like a pim and day planner, it is ridiculous to assume that it should not cover those roles as it doesn't fit in a pocket. Penty of people got by for years without a pocketable day planner.*
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Isn't PIM the predecessor to PDA which later turned into smartphone? I don't see too many people will use a 10" tablet in place of a smartphone to keep track of their daily schedules, really. As a help on the sideline, sure, but to do it all the time? I personally doubt it.

h00ligan said:
These features, the at a glance see your day stuff, should have been present from day one..and also no amount of 'well I don't see a need for it' can justify not providing your customers with options.
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Again, I've said it's a fair criticism but how is that relevant to his assertion that the iPad is somehow an inferior "business and productivity" tool? He said he didn't want to play games but have something useful for those purposes and I provided the context otherwise. I want to hear his argument on how widgets and desktop customization are more useful than productivity apps and I haven't heard that yet.

And I personally don't think "at a glance see your day stuff" is really the kind of stuff you "should have" in a tablet from day one. Nice to have options? Sure. Essential? I doubt it.
 
JeffMorse said:
I jumped in with both feet today. Sold the ipad 2 on craigslist and am going with a TouchPad.
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What led to that? I'm reading very lackluster reviews.

@fertilized, I see your point but I guess it's all in how you use the device, I have my iPad in front of or with me all the time, usually more convenient to change screens than get a phone out.
 
JeffMorse said:
I jumped in with both feet today. Sold the ipad 2 on craigslist and am going with a TouchPad.
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Wow!

Very brave!

Luckily I do not have to pick one over the other. But even if I did, at this point, I doubt if I would giave up my iPad 2.

The TouchPad is very nice so far though.........good luck!
 
Quick question to owners or those who know:

What video codecs does it support out of the box? If it could play regular .avi or .mkv videos downloaded from wherever, I'll probably go try one out.
 
To be honest, mostly boredom with the ipad I guess? I got to spend a couple of hours with the TouchPad last night prior to doing this. It did the things I did on the ipad well. A major selling point for me was the Beats sound system. Head and shoulders above the ipad. I really like the OS, and I'm not thrilled at all with itunes.

Frankly if the ipad 3 comes out and blows me away I'll swap again. I'm not married at all to Apple, or HP, or WebOS. Th

The ability to multi task is a huge one for me. I use the pad for work a lot and if I can have the server up, email and net up all at once and be able to cut and paste and move easily between them, that's a huge plus for me.

We'll see how it all pans out. There seems to be a lot of potential here.
 
solowmodel said:
Quick question to owners or those who know:

What video codecs does it support out of the box? If it could play regular .avi or .mkv videos downloaded from wherever, I'll probably go try one out.
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MP4, h.263 and h.264

Homebrew software will soon allow mkv files.
 
To those who have the Touchpad:

Have you been able to put your own videos on?

Whilst reading the ArsTechnica review I came across this,

"We also couldn't get videos to display in the TouchPad's Photos & Videos app, not even AVI files. There are apps in the App Catalog for renting movies and other video content, but there appears to be no good way to get your own videos onto the TouchPad right now."

:confused:
 
-Ken- said:
Correct, homebrew community is still working on it. Not sure if there is an open beta or not.
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Thanks.

Which are the best forums for the TP? The only one I've found that seems to be good is the one at precentral.net

Will probably pop by BestBuy tomorrow and check it out.
 
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