[crucian4]

First, welcome to the community if you are new. As the topic asks. I would like your impressions and experiences thus far if your primary device(s) is / was another mobile operating system. What do you like and dislike about webOS now that you are using it on a Touchpad. What do you like and and dislike about the Touchpad? What phone and / or tablet do you own? Will you keep the Touchpad? Do you think HP dropped the ball with this product? If so, where do you think HP dropped the ball with this product? What would you like to see if someone else picks up webOS? Anything else you may want to add.


I personally love my Touchpad overall. I am biased so I will list my dislikes.

I absolutely hate ( ) that gestures are missing. Those new to webOS don't know what that is to miss it. You have not experienced webOS until you have used gestures and advanced gestures to navigate. Bring them back HP or any new hardware manufacturer.

I don't like that I can't do video out with it or connect a thumb drive or use an sd card or card reader.

The native browser. Though much improved and visually pleasing it still lacks functionality with many sites. The ability to create, name, and reorganize bookmark folders would be nice.

No DRM support. I like to watch movies. Its a shame I can't play a digital copy on this which comes standard with many blu-rays today.

The glossy fingerprint magnet back. I thought Palm had evolved when I saw the Pre 2 but it seems we have regressed. Aluminum or the Pre 2 finish would have worked better.

I think pricing was a major issue. HP is not Apple. You have not proven your product yet so asking Apple prices is lunacy in my opinion. HP needs to make a profit but, it also needs market share and mind share. A lower price could have been a compromise between both goals. Look at all the buzz generated by the fire sale. New users are popping up on different forums praising the Touchpad for the most part.

Advertising and marketing strategy. Advertising and marketing strategy. Did I already say advertising and marketing strategy. Oh and advertising should start before product release and ramp up as release dates get closer. Just a thought.


There are a few more but these are my opinions as an example. So chime in with your thoughts.

[indivisibletears]

I've been on webOS since June 2009, so I'm another biased user...but I can share my experience of showing my sister-in-law how to use her new Touchpad.

She carries an iPhone, so that's where she is coming from. I showed her a number of things, but the words out of her mouth were continually, "oh, that's cool" or "wow, that's nice." I turned my wife and younger bro to webOS over a year ago, and now I'm working on m older bro's wife. She was real impressed and made a comment about how it was fun just learning how to move around it from a UI standpoint. She kept wanting to push the buttons and I had to keep reminder her that all she needed was to swipe to move around. After about an hour on the TP, she was back on her phone laughing and saying she wants to swipe instead of hitting her home button.

Anyway, it was fun watching her enjoy webOS coming from iOS

[Tim Z]

I own a windows7 custom biult PC, a 3GS iPhone and now the TouchPad. I am really impressed with the TP. I really like the OS as a whole and really hope that more apps become available.

The funniest thing I find switching back and forth between the TP and the iPhone is when using he iPhone and I go to close an app I automatically start to do the "Swipe" to close it, then I remember opps, not WebOS

[cashmonee]

Coming from iPhone 4 and iPad 2 currently. I like the Touchpad overall, but it has some major issues that hold it back. One is the performance out of the box. Even after tweaking it a bit the performance still is not as smooth as an iPad. Another is the lack of apps. I agree that quantity gets overblown, but you need that quantity to start reaching the niche. Everyone may only use 5-10 apps on a regular basis, but it is a different 5-10 for everyone. I get that Flash can help, but for most things I find a native app is better than Flash(ex. pandora). I like that the keyboard includes more keys, but then realize why the iPad doesn't. It makes it much harder to type on. Also, the auto-correct is awful. It is way to slow to really be useful, and instead becomes annoying. The problem is that virtual keyboards need auto-correct to be better than adequate.

On the plus side, I love the Touchstone and Exhibition Mode. Cards are cool and better than the iOS hidden icon row, but I wish things like the web browser didn't have to open a new card every time. The ability to jump into dev mode easily is nice for tinkering as well, though I prefer things just work without tinkering.

All in all, a good little tablet for $99. I would not have paid much more than that though considering the uncertain future. I also would not ever choose it over an iPad 1 or 2.

[tribestros]

I began with Symbian, then iOS, and finally Android on my phones. And while webOS is nice, nifty and unique it's just not that good. There's no way it should be as laggy as it is, it's just quite sloppy. It looks nice and is intuitive, but it's warts show way too much. It needs to be refined.

[iboost79]

I initially joined this forum back when the Palm Pre launched for Sprint. But as soon as the iphone came out, I jumped ship. I'm primarily a Mac OS X & iOS user. Of course, I was one of those trying to find a $99 TP and finally got one last week.

First impressions, I really like how webOS has improved since its launch 2 years ago. But its still far from iOS. I don't know what the stock TP was like since I tweaked it right out of the box. But even overclocking and minimized logging, its still sluggish. The keyboard is great, but the auto-correct is horrendous.

At the $99 price point, the TP and webOS is amazing for YouTube, web browsing, and keeping up with your agenda. The number apps are what kills the TP even at $99. There just isn't enough apps available out there. I was willing to pay $500 for an iPad because of the number of apps available. I still have my iPad 1 for music, movies, and books/magazines.

[laoh]

I think webOS 3 is well done... just needs more polish and optimization to get rid of the lag even after patching and overclocking. I think the design of the UI should be judged separately from the performance of the UI... many are not doing this (unfortunately) so they experience a laggy, buggy webOS and conclude that webOS sucks.

But ditto on the gestures missing. I keep wanting to back swipe before reminding myself, "shoot, I have to hit that back arrow", which can be in different places depending on the app (which is one thing I dislike about android - the lack of consistency in the same functions).

It's too bad but realistically, too cost prohibiting to do gestures in the bezel (where do you put it, all around?) Plus, what if the tablet market moves towards slimmer to no bezel in the future, just like how the bezels have shrunk on flat screen TVs... there must be some smart way to do swipes tho... I was thinking, if they would a good place for gestures, it could be around the depth of the tablet, around the circumference... but then you have a problem with placing ports and switches... just thinking...

[ohmytvc15]

Win 7, Ipod touch and now the TP.

This is a nice OS but not the greatest. Both WIN 7 and IPAD/Ipod are better. However the TP is much better on the mutli-tasking. I wasn't in the market to buy a tablet but couldn't resist the deal. It wasn't something i felt i needed. It's too small to do any real work and too big to stick in your pocket so why do i really need one? But now that i have it I like it. Tablets need to come down in price to make it worth my while. I will say i checked out the Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1 and was thoroughly impressed. If i had seen the TP in the store i don't think i would have been impressed.

Number one complaint about the OS is that it feels too much like Linux which i have always hated. Especially the file system. There isn't an explorer type app to see what you have on your HD. Internalz doesn't cut it for me. I also want more control over my music, video and photos. I don't like how the photo/video app just puts everything on your HD. If i have some videos i don't want others seeing i can't hide them lol.

The browser has no options. There are other things too but right now i'm just looking at it as something to have if i wanna do some easy browsing while sitting on the couch or just checking email etc. I like the notifications and i also like the little light flashing when you have email or messages. Video chat needs some serious work as does VOIP in general.

I guess what I'm saying is I like it for something small and portable. But it doesn't really compete with what else is out there.

[crucian4]

Thanks for your input. WebOS still needs some work. A little elbow grease and some polish and it could be great. If HP were to focus on resolving bugs and fill the lacking gaps webOS could explode. I would think this is quite possible since they are only supporting the software now. Resolve the issues and bugs, fill the gaps, polish, optimize, and license webOS to Samsung, HTC, etc.

[andytvcams]

I began with Symbian, then iOS, and finally Android on my phones. And while webOS is nice, nifty and unique it's just not that good. There's no way it should be as laggy as it is, it's just quite sloppy. It looks nice and is intuitive, but it's warts show way too much. It needs to be refined.

I had my touchpad for a week and have given it a good try but among other things its so slow compared to android.

so much so that I shall go back to using my android Acer A500 until such time that android is ported across.

Shame really as the tablet itself looks and feels well made,
its just badly let down by its webos.

[NuclearWinter]

My very brief impressions as an iOS user (Symbian before that):

Like the UI and multitasking, like Synergy, like having flash support.
Don't like the sluggish, sloppy performance even after all the tweaking and overclocking.
Hate how many things I just can't do with it due to lack of apps, and that even the few apps available mostly seem to be worse than iOS equivalents.
And lack of Japanese input support is killing me.

[DeadVim]

I'm enjoying mine, I think the useability of WebOS is really good but the obvious lack of apps really hurts. On the other hand the Homebrew community seems strong and the techie tweakers seem friendly so I'm enjoying being able to 'own' my OS rather than be limited to a sandbox.

I've had an iTouch for a couple of years now and I have to say I love it. I'm no Apple ****** (wow, I didn't expect that to be censored ... I guess f-boy will pass?) and this is the first Apple thing I've owned but it just works for me and has been rock solid.

I can't say I've perceived the TP to be sluggish but I haven't owned another tablet so ...

I do head for the Touchpad for mobile browsing, tweaking and, recently, SNES emulating

The iThing is used for time-wasting games and the multitude of music-making/controlling apps that are out there ... I am tempted to get an iPad 2 just on the strength of the music-making apps as it has to be said there is some quality out there.

In short, the TP has a useful place in my techie line-up and I have no problems with the $150 outlay ... at full price I would have been less impressed it has to be said.

I'm hoping webOS gets further development (and apps) but I can see the appeal of a dual-boot Android tablet too.

When all is said and done it's more about the apps than the OS for me.

[crucian4]

Thanks and keep em coming.

[vcsg01]

Coming from an iphone 3gs, htc evo (cyanogenmod), and a nook color(cyanogenmod). And using an ipad1 and 2 and some other android tabs...Im actually really impressed with the webos interface. I feel like the core funtions of the os are very good and smooth. Swiping between screens in the launcher has the special feel and quality to it that i feel android doesn't have but ios does. Sure on a fast android phones the menus swipe over really fast but it doest have the "feel". I actually think the the iphones animations are annoying, they are just a little to slow or something, but they are smooth so its still nice looking. The card system i think is perfect for a tablet. I do find myself kind of missing widgets. I dont really like how when you pull up the browser its just blank. There should be a homepage button and a tiled list of your favorite sites like in chrome. If I launch my favorite pages from the launcher they come up really fast so that is nice. I don't feel like its a laggy system at all, i do that that some of the apps are slow to load but that is probably a dev problem and not a problem with webos. The app catolog needs to be optimized for sure.

It always seems like people think ios is perfect granted the last device I used exclusively was a 3g I had just as many nit picky complaints with it as I do with andoid or webos.

If hp keeps everyone working on webos...
HP Has "Almost 600 Engineers" Working On WebOS (HPQ, GOOG)
...I am excited to see the os gain the polish and little tweaks and additions in control that it needs. Remember when you couldn't copy and paste on your iphone? I hope webos gets further developed

[redraptor]

I'm coming from an android phone that I have been using for around a year or so. I have never owned nor used a tablet before, so this is a BIG change for me. When I first used android I was a bit skeptical since all I knew about was the iphone and ISO. But I decided to give a go. Since that time, I've become a techno dork when it comes to android. I don't know anything about development, but I keep up with all the android news and know my way around the device far better then the casual to semi casual market.

I've become very comfortable with android and only see defecting to the apple side for a few reasons (which I will avoid getting into). But needless to say, I like android very much and see no reason to go anywhere else. So naturally going from a small 4 inch android device to a large webOS screen has been quite a test of my versatility. I am happy to admit that I have adapted to webOS very well. I love the simple gestures of opening an application and then quickly closing it. I honestly feel like webOS is in an early stage of being a good os. But the fate of it is in HP's hands and I hope they continue.

Honestly, if (what am I thinking, "when") android gets ported and being fully stable (market, WiFi, etc) I will jump ship, mainly for the security of an ever developing os and the fact that I have several hundred dollars in applications. I like webOS, a lot, and I'm more than willing to give it a chance, but android and ios are where the big apps, big money, and big attention lie. And although I'm all for the underdog, in this case, siding with one of the big two will make for a better overall device. Or atleast that's how I see it.


on a side note: I never DREAMED of owning a tablet (mainly used as a school resource, SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper text books) but now that I do own one, I could not be happier, android or not. I am excited for android mainly to see this thing grow some legs and really take off as a viable 600 dollar tablet. But so far I am loving this thing. Best 150 bucks I've ever spent.

[DRFP]

I was a big Palm user but went to Iphone back when palm went to webOS because many of the medical apps were not ported to webOS
already I have argued that many apps are crap
So far this tablet is for PDF books ereader surfing music photos
I have tap note and may use it but it will not replace Iphone nor my laptop for many things nor would I expect it to.

I think its pretty fast and a lot better with updates and tweaks (thanks Pre central / preware)

I find it better than a netbook and good for surfing a lot better than my Iphone 4


pretty happy really

[djphatjive]

My wife had a original pre. We both loved it. I have had a iPhone 3GS as my first smartphone. I just got a Touchpad and love it. I do wish it had the back swipe and forward swipe though.

[millertime]

I have an iPad 1, I've owned an Evo, and I own an iPhone.
The Touchpad's implementation of WebOS is better than the iPad in my opinion. From a productivity standpoint, it is better than the iPad and any Android tablet, to me. From a media standpoint, well, it doesn't have iTunes or as many games. If you want to play games as a primary use, you should get an iPad because of the selection. The Touchpad certainly has enough games to burn some time when you have extra, and they perform just like the iPad, but the iPad has far more selection. It is far better than any Android flavor that i have used on any tablet or phone (I've used the Acert Iconia primarly for tablet use).
For getting work done, the Touchpad is best. The email client is better than Android or the iPad - by a long shot over the iPad. The calendar is the best of all the tablets. Multitasking ease is the best. Making and receiving phone calls on the Touchpad with your WebOS phone while multitasking - well, you can't do that on any other tablet that I know of and it is hugely productive.
It works fine for reading documents. Tablets are not great content creation devices but getting Quickoffice doc editing will be nice. IMHO, Quickoffice is the best office program for the iPad.
Amazon kindle works like any other tablet. Twitter clients are equal - again, not a huge deal. I'm not much of a facebook user but the facebook app is best on the Touchpad.
It comes down to what do you do on your tablet. Really, how many apps do you really use often? Studies show that the number is very, very small for 95% of the people. For most people, they are the same as well. If you work and communicate with others, I think the Touchpad is the best. If you want to play the most games, the iPad is the best. You get iTunes built in on the iPad and that is big for some. The music app on the Touchpad works great and is just as good as the iPad as well.
Not having VGA or HDMI out isn't great for business use. I suspect that was on the way before HP decided to get out of all PC/tablets/smartphones.
I haven't had one crash or reboot since updating to 3.02 and I've put it through lots of use. 3.02 was a HUGE improvement to stability primarly.
Yes, it lags at times. The iPad rarely lags (though even it does on occasions).
Most people have huge biases because they come from certain platforms. They are used to one OS, and an OS that works differently seems strange to them. That is the reason that Android sells any tablets at all - it certainly doesn't compare to the experience of an iPad, but lots of people use Android phones and therefore they are used to it. They are familiar with it. This concept is obviously true for lots more than just mobile OS's.

[doggyworld]

I wrote this up in another forum, but these are my thoughts of the Touchpad:

============================

Ok.. since everyone else is analyzing and giving their impressions of the TouchPad, I might as well chime in. For background, I own a Nook Color (rooted with CM7), Ipod Touch 4G, and have played with an Acer Iconia A500 for a few days before returning it. I've also used many Ipads (both 1 and 2) and am pretty familiar with them. This is also just my opinion, so don't take everything I say as fact.

First my thoughts of just the HP Touchpad. After I received it, I immediately I upgraded to 3.0.2 and did the recommended preware tips and overclock to 1.5ghz. Overall, the tablet is decently speedy. It is not lightning fast, nor is it slow enough to annoy anyone. In my opinion, the build quality and hardware is good. Not Ipad good, but better most tablets in the $200 - $300 price range I think. The IPS screen is nice and viewing angles are great. The glass feels great. I am a little disappointed in the low resolution (same as the Ipad2), but it's not a deal killer. The plastic back doesn't look very good in my opinion, but it feels solid and does not flex. It definitely does not feel cheap in my hands. WebOS is nice change from Android and IOS. I like the real multitasking which it provides and the swiping UI feels very intuitive. I generally won't have more than 1 or 2 cards open at a time, but I've heard reports of problems if you leave a bunch of open cards. In my opinion, I'm not sure if it's any better than IOS or Android, but rather just different. It does seem quite a bit simpler than Android which I think a majority of users will appreciate. Synergy is nice, but since I actually don't like to tie in all my accounts to the tablet I have not used it much.

The main application for this is the browser, so I will talk about it first. It's a decent browsing experience and fast enough on most websites. I've read online that benchmarks make it about half as fast as an Ipad 2 and half as fast as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and based on my experience, that seems about right. Flash on most sites will work, but on heavy sites, it seems rather slow. I prefer to turn it off unless I actually need it for a site like YouTube. One thing to note is that by default, almost all sites will load the full website on the TouchPad as opposed to the mobile versions which will load on the default browsers for Android and the Ipad. This can be both good and bad depending on your preference. I myself prefer the full browser experience most of the time. Some sites have problems loading in the browser, but most will load fine and I believe most people will not have any problems with the browser. A couple of things about the browser do annoy me. 1) You cannot bookmark a website with an "&" in the URL because it gets converted to "&" which is the html tag for that symbol. It screws up when I try to bookmark the HotDeals page because of this. As far as I can tell, there isn't a patch/fix for this currently. 2) The browser does not "reflow" webpages when zooming in, or in other words, the structure of text will be changed so it will fit the screen width so you do not need to scroll left to right if you zoom in too far. Other than those two things, I think the browser works fine and most people will enjoy the browsing experience. It's decently fast and responsive without too much lag. It would be nice to have other free browser options like on Android and IOS, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

The app store for the TouchPad is quite disappointing if you are used to Android or IOS. It's much smaller and there isn't quite a clear picture if this will change in the future. A lot depends on HP's plans for WebOS which is up in the air at this point. If HP does not find someone to license WebOS and nobody makes any new hardware for it, chances are there's not going to be many developers willing to create new applications for WebOS. Even though there may be a lot of WebOS users now, without an expanding user base, it just would not be that enticing for developers. It would be a shame if HP can't pull this through since WebOS does seem like it has a chance at being a nice OS for regular users. That being said, there are a handful of really nice apps for the HP Touchpad and I'm sure a lot people won't really mind the small app selection since the most important app, the browser, is what this will be used for 95% of the time.

Another option for the TouchPad would be for Android to be ported over. I, myself, would really love to have CM7 or Honeycomb ported over, but I am not going to expect it, since it will still be quite a while before this happens. Even though the development team have made quite a bit of progress, there's no guarantee for a stable release which is ready for prime time yet. I have my hopes, and I think it probably will happen eventually, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I would not recommend people buying this tablet on the assumption that Android will be on this, since nobody knows how long this will take and technology moves fast.

So is this tablet worth $100? In my opinion, definitely. For this price, you're getting a decent web browsing experience, decent battery life, and a small selection of apps. Even if WebOS dies and nothing else is done with it, you'll still have this. Plus, the tablet actually works very well for showing off pictures and playing movies. I would say it's still a great deal for $200 for the 16gb and probably $250 for the 32gb. At $300, it'd be a lot harder for me to recommend given the other choices like the Ipad and other Android tablets. If WebOS had a known future, perhaps $300 would still be a good price, but with the uncertainty of WebOS, I'd hesitate to recommend to anyone at that price. At the $200 price point, this is still nicer hardware than anything else you'll find with Android at this price and it's still a good amount of money cheaper than really nice Android tablets. This may change in the future if Amazon is able to deliver a really nice tablet for $300 or less, but that's still speculation at this point.

In the end, I'll be keeping my TouchPad to use around the house. It does not replace my Nook Color though since I prefer the Nook's size when I'm reading things in my bed and also there's a few apps I really love on the device like the Pulse News reader and Opera Mobile (it just renders pages much faster!). Hopefully, this review is helpful to ppl.

[JohnKreese]

I have a Pre-, MBP, an Ipod Touch, a TP and since last week an IPad2. I think in the end it all comes down to where you're coming from with the device. If I hadn't seen the things you can do with WebOs, I'd probably be in love with my Ipad as I'm not an Apple (or Droid) hater by any means. However I ended up staying with Palm when my daughter literally destroyed my Centro a while back and have been corrupted. I can't say that I dislike my Ipad2 at all, but even with a much better app selection I do notice that I tend to use it less when I have choices than I did my TP. Mainly because without the multi-tasking features of the TP, I often find it easier to just use my MBP. My job has a rather complicated (and annoying) means of signing into our network that is way easier with a TP/Pre than it is on Apple stuff. Of course there's an App for that on the Ipod Touch/IPhone, but it's easy and free on the TP/Pre. I really miss not having cards, and will probably explore rooting and their version of cards after the return period is up.

I've read multiple opinions around here from Droid/Ios users that Synergy isn't that big of a deal and that those systems have caught up. I can't speak for Droid, but on Ios I call bs as I've spent way more time getting contacts and calendars on board and synced up on my Ipad than I did with my Pre or TP. Frankly it stinks in relation, as does the notification system which I know is getting improved shortyly. I also enjoy the Touchstone way more than trying to fit that Apple plug into the device. I use my TP in Exhibition mode at night as a clock/alarm and it was much nicer to just go from the family room to bed and drop it into the Touchstone quietly. Now I fumble in the dark to plug my Ipad2 in and listen to my already sleeping wife grumble at the distraction.

I've never had the serious issues that some Pre and TP users have noted as far as lagginess, really bad construction issues, reboots, etc. I did have a loose headphone jack on my 1st TP, but it was replaced and all was well. Some of the complaints I heard from TP users about the device like no clock or calc app made me laugh when I found that the same was true of the IPad and that like nearly everything on the Ipad a comparable remedy tends to cost more $$$. For me the lagginess thing is a matter of presentation on the TP. Comparable apps on both devices loaded in the same time for me, but IPad does a way better job of making you not notice the time on the transition. The spinning wheel probably needs to go during app loading as it's a negative psychological barrier imo. My Angry Birds on TP loads faster than the one on my Ipad, but you don't really notice it as both have the big Rovio screen followed by the AB screen while they're loading vs the spinning wheel. A few apps (Usa Today) seem to load faster (and be better done) on the TP than the Ipad. Speaking of Usa Today, I had really gotten used to the slider handles in the TP and miss them on the Ipad. That's one of the many annoying things about the Ipad email app.

In the end though you really can't compare the 2 without talking about apps and that's really where the Ipad2 shines. It is a big deal, one that can be overcome in large measure, but that's heavily dependent on the dolts who botched the PrePlus/Pre2/Veer/TP/Pre3 and most importantly botched the announcement of leaving the hardware business from top to bottom both internally and externally. I really do think it is somewhat of a draw like an article read earlier this month said. WebOs' multitasking and Synergy and homebrew ease really do make a big difference in accomplishing the things most of us do on a daily basis, enough so to compensate from a smaller app store and system lagginess for some, but the Ipad's app selection really does cover up a lot of the warts and the fact that it's basically just a glorified Ipod Touch (at least until iOS 5 comes out). I'm enjoying checking out both and expect that I'll get just as used to my Ipad over time as my WebOS devices (maybe....)