The HP TouchPad Review: webOS on the Big Screen
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 17, 2011 11:11 PM ESTPhotos, Videos & Music
By default there are no folders on the TouchPad's media partition for photos, videos and music. It's up to the end user to create and maintain your own folder structure. You don't have to, but it does make things easier - particularly when it comes to photos. Note that there is a DCIM folder for pictures captured with the TouchPad's sole front facing camera, although there is no standalone camera app.
Any compatible file types found on the media partition will automatically appear in the Photos & Videos application. While you can create albums on the TouchPad itself, webOS treats each folder of photos as a separate album by default. The Photos app does integrate your profile pictures and other Facebook albums if you've given webOS your FB login information.
There are no fancy UI transitions or anything when viewing photos, you just get a pretty standard touchscreen photo viewing experience.
The TouchPad supports H.264 movies encoded in High Profile at up to 10Mbps without issue, higher bitrates are possible as well depending on the content and settings. MKV containers aren't supported but .mp4 is. Don't get too excited about the high bitrate support however, the TouchPad's video player app has a disappointing 2GB file size limitation currently in place. While the VFAT file system on the media partition in the TouchPad supports up to 4GB files, I couldn't get any video larger than 2GB to actually play in the app - regardless of bitrate or encode quality. I'm hoping this is a bug that gets addressed soon otherwise there's a lot of wasted hardware potential inside the TouchPad.
Video playback controls are pretty standard. You can view movies in their standard aspect ratio or stretch to fit in the TouchPad's 4:3 ratio.
The Music player app is similarly run of the mill. What sets the TouchPad apart in media playback however are its speakers. By no means are these great speakers, but they are the best I've heard on a tablet and arguably better than a lot of ultra portable notebooks/netbooks. While the Beats by Dre sound processing may not sound great to everyone, the implementation on the TouchPad delivers music that actually has some bass to it and doesn't sound tinny. The TouchPad even gets loud enough to keep you company while in the shower. Overall I'm very pleased with the music playback experience on the TouchPad, I only wish it had Google Music support.
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Conner_36 - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
to put it simply on the ipad there are apps for thatHrel - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
When did this become CellTech.com? Seriously at first I appreciated the coverage, but really when the OS and hardware is all basically the same you don't need to review EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT RELEASED!!!! Give us bench marks sure, so we can compare specs. Write maybe a page about your impressions on customizations and screen and what not; but that should be it. Why all the articles on this mostly the same crap? Why can't you be this devoted to laptops? There are still TONS of interesting laptops out there you haven't even talked about. I'm not just talking keyboards and screens here, but significant amounts of hardware you simply DO NOT have benchmarked.I almost feel like you need to move all this tablet/smartphone/blah blah blah crap to it's own site. I'm sick of seeing it. It's stupid and most people simply do not need it. It's not that interesting and you are focusing WAY too much on it.
Hrel - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
P.S. WHY would I buy a 500 dollar tablet when I can get a pretty good laptop for that same price?Seriously these things need to drop down to 200 bucks or less without a 8000 dollar contract; this shit is insane. Only handheld I care about at all are PSP Vita and everything made my Archos and you guys haven't touched on any of that AT ALL!!!!!!
Honestly, FUCK anything and everything that requires a contract!!!!
jebo - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I disagree, I'm really enjoying Anand's looks at the mobile industry.Re: a $200 tablet, there's always the Nook Color.
Speaking of which, I would like to see the Nook Color mentioned more in these reviews. IMHO, it's still one of the top 3 choices for prospective Tablet buyers due to its cost and the screen quality. I would love to know how it more directly compares with the newer tablets.
kmmatney - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I bought a Nook for $189 on E-bay - direct from Barnes and Noble. It has flash enabled, but is a it under-powered. It works OK for my purposes - browsing on the couch, and entertainment while traveling. Other than that, it doesn't get used a whole lot, which is why I didn't want to spend more than $200.dookiex - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
I don't understand the logic to this. You don't want to spend more than $200 so you ended up with a underpowered and under-supported nook and thus basing off your expectations of tablet devices off of your nook experience. Illogical.Mumrik - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
And that's why so many of us just picked up HP Touchpads for 99 or 149 bucks.Impulses - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
First off, your rant is way off base... Every single tablet can be bought sans contract. Are they overpriced? IMO, yes, but for millions of people who don't need a laptop (or who have a heavy/big laptop) these tablets are a prefect complement... And AT puts out the best tablet/smartphone reviews on the web, bar none. I really hope they don't slow down anytime soon, even though I'm not even in the market for a tablet right more.My next upgrade will probably be an ultraportable to replace my netbook (as you said, a better way to spend $500-700), but there's other places on the web doing competent laptop reviews. Smartphone reviews in particular are awful almost anywhere else, completely devoid of facts or any empirical testing. I do agree that maybe they don't need to review as many mid-range models tho, the three different reviews of single core LTE VZW phones didn't really tell us anything different... But then again, those phones ARE VZW's high end models right now so others would disagree about the reviews' priority.
sledge333 - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I totally agree! Sick of all these so wanabee products! Give me a laptop any day. Give me a normal phone any day! Boys and their toys! More suitable for women who carry handbags, but for men, huh! Get a tailored made pair of jeans with a crunch proof pocket to protect it!Add the cost whilst sitting outside some fancy coffee shop playing with your toy , because some bastard runs past and nicks it!
And anyone that wants to watch a movie on a piddley little screen or play games - save up your money for the opticians, you're gonna need it!
P.S I signed up today just because of the boring reviews on crap I will never use! Get back to computers not bloody toys!
SongEmu - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
Personally, I appreciate his attention to the rapidly changing scene of mobile technology... Granted, I'd love some PC hardware bench's... but what he's doing isn't a bad thing.