#FlashbackFriday: HP TouchPad revisited - With Android!

[Aniallation]

Well my brother managed to get an HP TouchPad for cheap off eBay (didn't tell me how much) and gave it to me (for free, so in that case quite a bit less then the $150 or so they're going for on buy now items) and I thought what the heck lets give it a revisited review and see how it is. I got the tablet, USB cable, a wall adapter, a case for an iPad 1, and, interestingly, a Touchstone wireless charger, a dock for the Touchpad that wirelessly charges it (sadly not a Qi charger, didn't work with a Nexus 5). The tablet also came preinstalled with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich in the form of CyanogenMod 9 replacing stock WebOS. With me previously having a 2012 Nexus 7 and now an Xperia Tablet Z, this was quite interesting. 
 
 
Exterior design:


 
I'm not going to lie, I absolutely hate the design of the HP Touchpad. Whoever decided that it would be a good idea to put a piano black surface on the back of any portable devices needs to be punished, never mind the entire back of a tablet. The back scratches very easily, collects LOTS of fingerprints, and is very fragile. Mine already has 3 cracks coming from the speaker holes, and this is apparently a very widespread problem with these. Speaking of the speaker holes, there are two of them (stereo speakers) that are located on the side edge of the tablet, this makes it optimal for landscape use but awkward for portrait use. On the other side are the volume control, and an awkward opening, that when pushed in, ejects a small tab that contains the serial number of the device. I thought this was a full size SD card port at first.

 

 

Performance:

 

 

Performance on the HP Touchpad compared to other tablets these days is nothing to write home about. It features a 1.2GHz Snapdragon S3 processor, an underclocked version of the processor in the original Samsung Galaxy Note, along with a few S2 variants (T-Mobile and Skyrocket), the HTC Sensation, and a bunch of other things. It was great for the time, and It still gets general use like web browsing and light gaming done. I'm not sure as to what it can actually handle, but I've played Racing Rivals, Real Racing 3 and Gran Turismo 2 (using ePSXe) on it and all seemed to run fine, but still, it's not a Tegra K1.

 

Software:

 

 

 

The HP TouchPad shipped with the horrible and awkward WebOS, which I'm not even going to talk in depth about because, well, there's nothing in depth to really talk about. However, my TouchPad came pre-loaded with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. There are also ROMs available to get the newest 4.4 KitKat running on the TouchPad, but after having 4.3 Jelly Bean struggle to be smooth on my 2012 Nexus 7, I just decided to stick with ICS. It's CyanogenMod 9 giving us this magic, which is pretty much a stock-android experience, with a few added CyanogenMod features like customizable quick toggles in the notification popup, battery percentage, and selectable themes. Being someone who's a strong supporter of Cyanogenmod on any device, its a welcoming home.

 

Screen:

 

 

There's not much to say about the TouchPad's screen. It's the same 9.7" size and 1024x768 resolution found in the original iPad and iPad 2. Apparently some TouchPads have different screens then others, resulting in different color reproduction and temperature, however coming from an Xperia Tablet Z like I am, it's very pixelated and not that nice to look at. From a distance it's okay, but close up it's quite messy. The non-widescreen format like the iPad is great for looking at web pages and documents, but again it's hard to do so when text is blocky. If you're coming from an original iPad or iPad 2 however, it shouldn't be that bad for you. 

 

Sound:

 

This is probably the number one reason that my HP TouchPad has to be the second best tablet I've ever used (first being my waterproof Sony Tablet Z). The speakers on this thing are absolutely mind blowing. After hearing the barely-audible tinny mess of the 2012 Nexus 7 and the slightly-better-but-it-still-sounds-crap-cause-we-had-to-make-them-waterproof speakers of the Tablet Z, I thought my HTC One M8 was a whole new pinnacle of mobile sound quality. Man was I wrong, the first time I listened to music on the TouchPad I had the volume on maximum and had my hands cupped around the speakers like I would on my last two tablets. When I hit play, I almost lost my hearing. 

 

The HP TouchPad with WebOS had Beats Audio built in, and although Android removes it, the speakers still sound incredible. They are the loudest and best sounding speakers I've ever heard in a portable device. Compared with the loudest portable speaker I own, a Philips one I don't know the name of specifically, the Touchpad is still quite a bit louder and noticeably better quality. Headphone output is also quite good, not exactly up to the output in my One M8, but still great quality and able to power my AT M50's without a hitch.

 

(measured at max volume with Sound Meter app on HTC One M8, one Bic pen distance away from speaker(s), chorus of Demons by Imagine Dragons, the mic on the phone in this app maxes out at 90dB)

 

In the end:

 

The HP TouchPad is a great tablet for the price even today. It's definitely better for the price then an iPad 2 in my opinion, and would make a great alternative. It's surely going to be sticking around the house for some web browsing, YouTube, and listening to music. It's a shame HP went so bad with these things, a TouchPad 2 would have been a good seller to those who knew of the TouchPad legend, but with today's tablet market HP is just focused on their Slate line... sort of. Heck, what are they even focused on nowadays?  If they had a lower price tag then the 500-600 bucks or so they were going for when they launched it would have stood a chance, but being what it was it was stomped over by the iPad. However now that it has Android and the price has come down, finding one for a good deal would still be a great choice when looking for an older-model second hand Android tablet. 

[terrytek]

You mean #FlashBackFriday

[Levent]

I remember seeing them go for 150$

[Aniallation]

I remember seeing them go for 150$

Fire sale. Second hand and eBay prices generally just act like the fire sales never happened.

[DeViLzzz]

Problems with overcharging it and the charging hardware both in and out of the tablet made things frustrating with this tablet.  Still got this for my son for $99 and he got loads of use out of it and I was able to put Android on it along with WebOS (dual boot) which gave him more programs/apps to use.  Now that is wonderful when he could use it but recently they had an issue where I think they drained the battery too much and this time it may be dead but it has been said before and it wasn't true.  I asked for the tablet back to work on but no go so far.  Damn people who don't listen to me.  I said don't let battery life go low without charging it.  It is a problem with these HP Touchpads.

[Aniallation]

Problems with overcharging it and the charging hardware both in and out of the tablet made things frustrating with this tablet.  Still got this for my son for $99 and he got loads of use out of it and I was able to put Android on it along with WebOS (dual boot) which gave him more programs/apps to use.  Now that is wonderful when he could use it but recently they had an issue where I think they drained the battery too much and this time it may be dead but it has been said before and it wasn't true.  I asked for the tablet back to work on but no go so far.  Damn people who don't listen to me.  I said don't let battery life go low without charging it.  It is a problem with these HP Touchpads.

There's been notable issues of when people let the batteries run dry. Mine came dead in the mail, not sure for how long but when it arrived it took at least 24 hours of charging on a 5V 2A charger from an Asus VivoTab Smart for it to be able to turn on again, and when I did turn it on after sitting on the charger for 24+ hours the battery was still only at 6%, however after turning it on it charged normally afterwards. These things need at least a 2A charger to charge them. Anything less then that just won't do. 

 

Also, the TouchPads were considered quite a big flop for HP. They just want them wiped off the face of the earth, not to be reminded of their mistake. Such a shame, a cheaply priced Touchpad 2 with Android probably would have sold well, at least better then the HP Slate nonsense they're selling nowadays.