The HP Touchpad's WebOS is vastly superior to Android and iOS.
These would be but words, if there was no evidence to back it up, so here it is.
The constant cons/complaints from alleged professional reviewers go as follows.
It is thicker and heavier than an iPad. Although that is true, it is not so heavy or thicker as to be an inconvenience and more importantly, part of the reason it is bigger is because of the superior hardware inside, bigger processor, more ran and the audio system/speakers.
The Touchpad needs the more powerful CPU and greater amount of ram than an iPad for example, as it muititasks many apps at the same time, as opposed to a machine than can only do one, or sometimes two if one considers multitasking to be the ability to play music while surfing a single internet page.
When a video stream is coming in too slow, I minimize the page and do something else whilst it loads the stream.
Try that on an iPad.
The stereo sound from a Touchpad is of greater quality than the single speaker in an iPad, not to mention the added ambiance by having stereo over mono.
Good hifi speakers are bigger and heavier than cheap tin can models, so if you want better sound like the Touchpad has, then the size will not matter to you one bit.
Next complaint from the "pros" is that WebOS does not have as many apps as Apple. Again that is true but is it truly a problem? No, it is not. There are ample already available, and now with the news of more to come, there are and will be more than any one person might ever want to use. It is a non issue.
Lastly comes the big one. The "pros" said it was slow, that it might jam up, that it could take too long to switch from horizontal to portrait mode. Those comments are only a semi truth. The fact is that if you operate it one app at a time like an iPad, then it not only isn't slow, it is faster than an iPad, specially after you have applied all the tweaks that are freely available on the internet. As an iPad is incapable of multitasking, there are no slowdowns in general, as the internal hardware is more than capable of handling any one single task at a time, whereas the Touchpad is a completely different type of device that multitasks, and just like a home computer, will eventually slow down if there are too many apps open at the same time. The "pros" reviews about slowing down are so unfair when they compare it to an iPad that the question becomes, were they paid by Apple to say that or are they all that ignorant. Even a child knows that too many applications open at the same time, spells slowdowns and maybe even a crash. To spell it out by citing an example, it would be like saying that Joe Blow never has problems eating one hotdog at a time, but he slows down when he eats 8 at a time. The scenario is ridiculous and the comparison is unjust.
If it is justifiable to bad mouth a computer type product that slows down from too many open windows, then it would apply to every single computer in the world, except an iPad, that can't do more than one thing at a time. Now that the three main complaints have been addressed and proven to be non-issues, it is time to talk about why a Touchpad is such a superior machine. Any knowledgeable techie knows that the WebOS interface is the best of the group of multitasking tablet operating systems. iOS has a very nice interface too and some might argue that it is as good as that of the Touchpad, but it is not included in these comparisons, as it is not a multitasking computer system, therefore doesn't have to deal with many open apps at the same time. How could anyone discuss the various ways that Android and WebOS deal with multiple apps being open and include the iPad in that conversation, when the iPad can't even have multiple apps open?
I fully recognize the value of an iPad and I perceive it as it is, a wonderful machine, well built, with an ultra simple interface that can be easily operated by young children and even IQ challenged individuals.
The more sophisticated tablets that operate like computers, have common advantages and even common problems, that simply don't apply to a machine that does only one thing at a time.
In short, the iPad is a type of toy that is also capable of surfing the internet, although not completely like the Touchpad, and it can use chat services like MSN Messenger and Skype, although it does not fully integrate Skype like the Touchpad does.
Apple products have become a status symbol to own and they are generally high quality products, and the iPad fits perfectly into that category. Where it does not belong is in comparisons to computer like tablets, as the iPad is a type of toy and not a utilitarian device like the Touchpad.
I own both an iPad and a Touchpad and can tell you that my Touchpad is a bit faster than my iPad, and 10 times more useful.
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Added observations, Sept. 20, 2011.
As per the review above, it isn't hard to guess that my Touchpad is much preferred over my iPad. (that my girlfriend has now appropriated and wouldn't let go of without a fight to the death.)
Inspired by some long waits to open webpages (on the Touchpad), I thought it was time to do an internet browsing speed comparison between it and the iPad.
We have Caribbean internet speed that is somewhat lacking when compared to even the slowest US plan, and a fast browser is critical for us, so as to not spend our lives waiting on webpages.
To cut to the chase, this is what I discovered.
When trying to compare the two, I was stunned to discover that the two units rarely landed on identical pages.
The iPad would have a modified www address that might include the word "ipad" or "tablet" and it presented pages that have clearly been "tuned" for 25 million iPad users.
If I went to Yahoo news, for instance, the iPad would give me different headlines than the Touchpad or a Windows PC.
It's not as if I didn't already know that an Ipad couldn't open many webpages or youtube videos and that it simply won't let the user go to those pages that it can't deal with, but I never thought/knew that Apple was also controlling some of the www content.
My initial reaction was to feel like I was in China, cut off from the rest of the world wide web.
On the other hand, everyone is trying to control the internet, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc, so why shouldn't Apple be allowed to play in the same sandbox.....
So......
You would like the results of the test, as would I.
I simply could not make any true clinical observations, when the two machines rarely even opened identical pages.
My non clinical observation was that they are similar in speed and neither could be declared the victor, except in terms of the Touchpad being able to connect with the normal web as we know it, as opposed to Apple's modified version.
So instead of coming out of this with a webpage speed comparison between the two units, all it showed was what I already knew, that an iPad is a toy that has a lot of internet connectivity and many good computer uses, whereas the Touchpad is a computer that has some toyishness about it.
It can play games like the iPad but has a seriously limited library when compared to the iPad's.
On the other hand, it functions much more like a real computer as we know it, with it's capacity to have several functions/processes running at the same time.
When someone sends me a video link, it usually refuses to stream all the way through, because of our slow bandwidth, so it's normal for me to pause and minimize the page and do something else, whilst the video clip downloads.
That's impossible to do on the iPad.
You can pause it and let it download, but you CANNOT do something else in the meantime, other than twiddle your thumbs and wait.
If you want to buy a fantastic gift for the kids, it would be hard to beat an iPad.
If you would like a touch tablet to do the same things you normally do on a computer, then the Touchpad is the machine for you.
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sergejus
quality of case is good, and touchscreen is better then on some samsung ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 6, 2015