HP Releases it’s HPpad

Yep. I bought one. Call me crazy, but it’s like experiencing when personal computers first came out in the 80’s. Except this time I have more than a paper route and the tablets are one-third the cost.

I’ve played with it about two weeks now. It’s physically so similar to an iPad, I’m disappointed HP couldn’t be more creative. After all, they had 18 months to think about it after Apple introduced it’s tablet.

The OS is all HP. Well, once they bought Palm last year. It’s unique. The on-screen keyboard is easier than the iPad as it as row of numbers across the top that doesn’t require a toggle.

Everything is a card. The cards can be swiped and stacked. I had to watch a video to figure out how to throw them away. Crumpling would have been intuitive, but the answer is to slide them up off the screen.

The HP feels fast but apps take a second too long to first launch. The app selection is meager. I was disappointed to discover the LinkedIn app was cell phone sized like an iPhone app would appear on an iPad. Adobe Flash support is built-in, but is slow and crashes like the Android does on Facebook games.

Battery life is great. It holds much more life when asleep than the Acer. Overall my experience is better than the Android-based Acer. HP has a lot of potential if they can stay focused and keep improving their WebOS.

To be fair, both Google Android and HP WebOS are new. Apple’s IOS has had several years to improve their OS. While it’s tough to recommend anything but an iPad, that may not be the case next year.

I’ll keep posting my findings and improvements. My iPad is still my tablet of choice.

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