Upgrade 16 to 32 or 64 meg

[Emtwo]

Has anyone looked into what is involved in upgrading the memorys in these TPs? I know back when pocket PCs were a big deal, there were aftermarket firms who would do repairs and upgrades. Things like replace cracked touchscreens, and install new memory. Anything like that available for the TP?

Right now, by itself, the 16 meg TP is fine. But once we goto duel booting android, or other OS's, the available memory becomes an issue.

[bnceo]

Seems like you should try to sell your 16GB TouchPad. Take those proceeds and use extra $$ to buy a white 64GB TouchPad.

[talonts]

Originally Posted by bnceo

Seems like you should try to sell your 16GB TouchPad. Take those proceeds and use extra $$ to buy a white 64GB TouchPad.

Oh, sure. Because after all, 64GB Touchpads are available everywhere, a dime a dozen, common as dirt.

You might as well tell him to pick up a Mr Fusion to charge his TP on the road.

[blue duck butter]

There is no easy or even semi-easy way to upgrade. It's nearly impossible.

[rustmonkey]

I'm sure they are surface mounted chips that would require a significant setup to deal with... not impossible, but not very easy... also, it may require a dump of the original chip in order for HP Doctor to recognize the new chip... just speculation as I haven't done this

[lafester#wn]

Originally Posted by talonts

Oh, sure. Because after all, 64GB Touchpads are available everywhere, a dime a dozen, common as dirt.

You might as well tell him to pick up a Mr Fusion to charge his TP on the road.

There are 17 of them on ebay right now.

[Couchpotatoslacker]

Originally Posted by Emtwo

Has anyone looked into what is involved in upgrading the memorys in these TPs? I know back when pocket PCs were a big deal, there were aftermarket firms who would do repairs and upgrades. Things like replace cracked touchscreens, and install new memory. Anything like that available for the TP?

Right now, by itself, the 16 meg TP is fine. But once we goto duel booting android, or other OS's, the available memory becomes an issue.

It's 16 and 32gb not meg

[Squirrel Dog]

the touchpad uses a sandisk inand memory chip.They come in 16/32 and 64 gb flavors for the hp touchpad . If the chip sits in a socket,then it could be replaced,providing whatever memory controller will accept it .If it is hardwired (soldered)to the PCB,I would think it would be rather difficult.I added memory to an Atari St years ago,it had to be soldered to the pcb.It was trickey in that the spaces were tight.I hope the memory upgrade can be done,as I have the 16gig model.

[VanFred]

I wonder if it would be cost effective? While it is not comparable, I recently looked 64GB SSD drives and they were costing £75 - £100.

The case seems to be prone to cracking, so unless it is done very well opening the case is going to hit the resale value of the Touchpad.

It seems to me better to sell a 16gb and buy a 32gb or 64gb.

[Wheel_nut]

Unless you ahve access to a spare Back Cover, it is inadvisable to try to remove the back because it is almost impossible to do this without breaking the clips.

My intention is to use a side entry USB OTG Cable to my 4-port USB Hub with up to 4 MicroSD cards. I will use this external storage for my Data (large libraries of music, Photo and Video) Files.

I have tested my rig to ensure that the data transfer rate is sufficient and also that I can do this without carrying anything other than the TouchPad and its barrel power supply.

.... and my warranty is intact .... for what that's worth

[Tiersten]

It was relatively easy to replace the flash in the old PDAs because whilst they were surface mount, they were in a package that exposed the leads on the side. If you knew what you were doing then you could have done it yourself at home.

The flash in the Touchpad however is a BGA device where there are little solder balls on the bottom which require expensive SMD rework equipment to remove and replace in a not very easy operation.

Considering the cost of the Touchpad and the cost of the new flash + replacement, it is probably not economical to do when compared to just buying a tablet which has it built in as standard.

You can see the PCB inside the Touchpad at the end of this page. As the BOM on that page states, the 32GB flash chip itself is roughly $45 and that would be mass production prices. If you want to buy one or a small handful then it'd be more expensive.

Another big factor for not doing this is the issue with opening/closing the casing and the associated clips as others have stated above.

[fsx100]

Tiersten,

Any idea what the 8GB Samsung chip is, on the main PCB, that is listed on the BOM?

[Tiersten]

Originally Posted by fsx100

Any idea what the 8GB Samsung chip is, on the main PCB, that is listed on the BOM?

That is the RAM. It is a 8 gigabit chip which is 1 gigabyte.

[Emtwo]

Thanks for all the replys. Some good info here. I see now that upgtrading isn't likely to happen. Oh well, it was just a thought.

[James Scott1]

Originally Posted by Emtwo

Has anyone looked into what is involved in upgrading the memorys in these TPs? I know back when pocket PCs were a big deal, there were aftermarket firms who would do repairs and upgrades. Things like replace cracked touchscreens, and install new memory. Anything like that available for the TP?

Right now, by itself, the 16 meg TP is fine. But once we goto duel booting android, or other OS's, the available memory becomes an issue.

So its a little tricky taking the touchpad apart but there is no glue to speak of and everything inside is done with a Phillips screwdriver.. It looks like the memory is just a chip that can be replaced. What is interesting is the empty SD slot inside. Will an SD card work in this or is that for a 4G card?
Here is a video of the teardown so you dont make any mistakes lol
Please post if you try something that works
Teardown of HP TouchPad: Made like a PC and straightforward to repair | TechRepublic

[GMMan]

SD? Probably the SIM slot that's not actually hooked up. They use radically different pin layouts. I would not advise swapping the flash chip. You need proper equipment to desolder the chip, dump the first gig or so of flash, write it to a new chip, edit the partition tables so it uses the entire space, set up LVM and stuff, then solder the thing back on. Very messy work.