HP Touchpad

fury

Administrator
Staff member
HP doesn't know what to do with webOS and decided to sell off their inventory at a blazing $100-150. I finally picked one up after they've been so hard to find since, and have been geeking on for a few hours with it.

Much like I saw with the original Pre in July '09, I can see some potential in this OS. The hardware isn't quite as refined and solid as Apple's, and the UI on webOS is still sluggish at times, but the germ of an amazing competitor is there, there's just no company out there that can execute on it like Apple does.

The multitasking UI is just as good as it was when it was introduced, which is still better than how any other mobile OS does it. Notifications are a little different than on webOS-based phones -- they appear as an icon in the top right status bar. Still better than any other.

It's a shame both companies that have tried pushing webOS devices have come up with too little, too late. If these devices were all released just maybe a year or so earlier, this thing would have taken off and gave Apple a run for its money. But because Apple was quicker to the draw with the innovative UI, and focused more on what was important (responsiveness, fluid UI interaction, ecosystem), they got the loot. It's almost as if the roles were reversed. Apple today in tablets and smartphones is like what Microsoft is to desktop PCs. Android is catching up in the phone market by sheer force, but so far in my impressions is the last in the list of user experience.

webOS definitely could be the best basic smartphone/tablet user experience if the UI were hardware accelerated so that it were smooth, and had the time been taken for fit and finish instead of wasting time getting gobbled up by HP. It's only the app selection that ends up being the elephant in the room. Well, and marketing. Those first Pre commercials in '09 probably contributed some to its failure to take hold.
 

fury

Administrator
Staff member
It feels a bit like what would happen if you merged an iPhone 3GS with an original iPad and then gave it a bit more weight.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1314891376.100198.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1314891561.648315.jpg
 

fury

Administrator
Staff member
It is quite a bit thicker than the iPad 2, which for some may be good. In my gigantic manhands it's more comfortable to hold because the edges aren't as sharp, although the weight kind of counters that effect a little bit.

image-2181029614.png
 

Neo

Administrator
Staff member
Look at those MITS dude!!! lol
Funny how if at a quick glance you would swear it was a Ipad
So that was 150. ?
 

fury

Administrator
Staff member
This is the 16 gig. Originally $99, but I paid the late-to-the-party tax and bought it secondhand for $180 because it's out of stock everywhere and only the scalpers are selling them. Still not a bad deal, and I hear HP is making more so I'll get a chance to recoup my loss by playing the same trick on the next shipment.

And yeah, it's a dead ringer for an iPad. If somebody didn't know any better, they'd believe it was one. Palm made it as close to the iPad in dimensions & screen res & function as they could, probably to make it so that developers could easily port over iPad apps just as they did with iPhone apps (the original Pre resolution was 320x480 just like the iPhone until the iPhone 4, and the original Pre had the same CPU & GPU as the iPhone 3GS)
 

Professur

Mushroom at large
For a while, HP had a coupon deal on the second shipment, if you created a user on their developer forum. Since they had dumped all the source code, that would seem an ideal place for you to go as a coder.
 

fury

Administrator
Staff member
They were already sold out by the time I saw it.

The gadget laid on my shelf collecting dust after the novelty wore off, so I sold it. Got more than my money back, though - $200
 
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