The HP TouchPad Review: webOS on the Big Screen
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 17, 2011 11:11 PM ESTPhone Calls on the TouchPad
Forgive me as I may be a bit too excited about this feature, but I really think HP gets where tablets need to go as a result of this next item. When paired with a webOS phone via Bluetooth, you can use the TouchPad to place and receive phone calls.
The pairing process is pretty straight forward although there are hiccups thanks to the current state of webOS bugginess. Once paired you can lock your phone and put it aside as your TouchPad is now your conduit to telephony.
By default calls come through the TouchPad's speakers and use the mic along the top of the tablet. If you want your conversation private, you'll need to use a mic/headset combo (either wired or Bluetooth).
Thankfully while in a phone call you can still multitask. With the calling card pushed off to the side you can still use your TouchPad like you would normally. You can conduct an IM conversation, browse the web, or respond to emails while the call is going on. I can see this being particularly useful if your TouchPad is your primary computing device and you need to be on a conference call. You can take calls without ever moving your eyes off of the TouchPad and without interrupting what you were doing prior.
There are of course problems with the calling app. The TouchPad would occasionally drop audio when initiating or leaving a call. Sometimes when I lost audio here I wouldn't hear any audio throughout the TouchPad until I reset the device. I also wasn't able to access voicemail or view any of the call history on the TouchPad itself. Since the calls are actually routed through the paired phone, in my case a Veer, the call log appears on the paired phone - not the TouchPad. While I can understand why it works this way, I think I'd prefer a copy on the TouchPad at least in addition to what's stored on the phone.
Here's to hoping HP gets this stuff worked out in the first update to the tablet, otherwise it'll be a very rough road for any early adopters.
The reason I feel like the TouchPad's phone integration proves that HP understands the future of the tablet is because it helps integrate functionality. HP has a tablet that can, at least on paper, do more than competing tablets can do. In a perfect world you'd be able to quickly switch between apps, carry a phone conversation, SMS and IM people without having to distinguish which protocol you're using, all at the same time and all on the TouchPad. Today the TouchPad's performance issues and bugs are what remain in the way of that goal, but the vision is there. Just like your Mac or PC today is capable of doing a lot, very well, I believe tablets are headed in that direction too. Multitasking is key and making it so you don't need to reach for another device to do what you need to do is an important part of making tablets a permanent resident in anyone's computing life.
Skype Integration
The TouchPad wouldn't be a modern day tablet without some sort of video calling support. Apple has FaceTime, Google has Google Video Chat and HP has Skype. The Messaging app is what you use to send text messages to Skype users, but for voice and video calls you actually use the Phone & Video Calls app.
The process is pretty seamless, to test it I had Brian Klug call me on Skype. I was busy doing something else with the TouchPad but I got a ringtone and notification.
Video calls can only happen in portrait mode. While incoming video was good quality as you can see above, that's more than I could say for the video I was sending out. This is what I looked like on Brian's screen:
Eeech. Video automatically goes away when you switch away from the Phone & Video Calls app, but audio continues. Unfortunately I did have problems getting video to come back after switching back to the calling app, chalk it up to another webOS 3 bug.
The ability to hold a conversation while doing other things however is a nice feature of the TouchPad. If you spend a lot of time on Skype, you'll definitely appreciate the TouchPad.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record however, performance is once again a problem here. Here's a look at CPU usage during my Skype call with Brian:
It appears that the calling app is single threaded and during it call the app uses all of one core. Unfortunately just scrolling around the OS can easily eat up an entire core, leaving not much headroom left for multitasking. Any performance issues I had with webOS before were exasperated during my Skype call.
The audio dropout bug I had with regular phone calls also appeared during my Skype testing.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
67 Comments
View All Comments
TheTechSmith - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I also like the product review choices. Not everyone who reads Anandtech is a PC gamer, and tablets and smart phones are evolving way faster than PC technology, so it makes sense that more coverage is required. There are still plenty of PC component reviews that benchmark using plenty of games for that market. This is a particular product review I was waiting for in fact. Although one review I would like to see is a revisited Boxee Box review, since the Boxee software has changed drastically since the first review, and it was promised at the end of first review to be done before last Christmas.justaviking - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
As long as the phone and tablet reviews do not prevent traditional reviews of PCs, Laptops, and componets, then what's the problem? It takes me about 1 second to not read a review.Anand has to follow the market and the industry. Should he be busy benchmarking floppy disk drives? Should he not consider the ability to properly play HD video? He needs to stay current with industry trends or AnandTech.com will become a relic of the past.
There are lots and lots of reviews here that are not relevant to my immediate purchasing needs. Many I read because they are interesting anyway, though some I skim over much faster than others.
Lastly, and I hesitate to say it, but there is no need for profanity. It is possible to strongly and passionately voice one's opinion with resorting to gutter language. It's not that I'm delicate and easily offended, it's just that it affects the overall character of this site which is usuall very professional, even when the various fan boys don't agree. This site has some of the best readers in the world, and let's keep the standards high.
dookiex - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
Not only does Anand need to follow the market and industry, if he was to only review and report on PCs, laptops, and components, there would be very little content on the site! If you sat down and thought about it, there hasn't been any really breakthrough offerings in PC and components land in quite some time now. As for PC gaming, that market really died down since the 360 and PS3. Mobile casual gaming is also NOT helping matters in PC gaming land.thisisthetruthfolks - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
You hit it spot on. Anand if you read these comments, I'm just trying to figure out why this site focuses so much on all these cell phone / tablets stuff when it's traditionally a PC and hardware site.I think this site would be best off focusing on the CHIPS found in these devices, not so much the devices themselves.
And how come laptops get no attention? The biggest article you guys did on notebooks was a notebook GPU roundup that did nothing useful besides list all the available GPUs and categorize them as low end, mid range, or high end. Nothing in that article offered anything that the typical reader of this site didn't already know or couldn't find out on google.
Where is the reviews of notebook GPUs? No benchmarks of the 580m, no benchmarks of the 6990m, etc. etc. Sure there are some articles, but so many things are missing.
I subscribed to this site on twitter because I thought it had great reviews for GPUs/CPUs...only to find out that 99% of the time anandtech posts stuff about tablet computers that I couldnt care less about.
At least reading fudzilla is interesting. Except it has zero credibility. Maybe I'll subscribe to tom's hardware instead...
sprockkets - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
Don't like the first review of webos since you are a tablet hater? Then don't come back here. But don't be a whiny bitch about it either. That's Steve's Job.Wardrop - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - link
I've been wondering the same thing for the past year. I can only speak for myself, but I kind of see these articles as spam. I also hate the reviews of those boutique computers, as first of all, I get the impression AnandTech readers aren't on the market for a pre-built desktop computer, and second, a lot of these computers are only available in the U.S, and so are irrelevant for a lot of other readers (like many of the cellphone reviews). Laptop's I understand as they're popular and not something you can build yourself, but other than that, I'd like to see AnandTech focus more on desktop hardware and industry news. Anyone can give us reviews of mobile phones and tablets, but there aren't too many sites that can write an SSD anthology as comprehensively as AnandTech. That's their strength, and I'd love to see more of it.halihassan - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I’ve yet to reach the end of this review, but so far it seems like you’ve covered the tablet fairly well. One item that I found missing (but is relatively unique) is the monthly Pivot magazine built into the App Catalog. I quickly discovered and downloaded several apps that way, and having used Android and iOS app stores I definitely think that gives HP a huge edge when it comes to discovering applications.halihassan - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I agree that HP has a ways to go to fully integrate a wireless syncing solution, but it was nice that Box.net offers 50GB of storage for free to all TouchPad users. Box.net is built into Synergy, but it has yet to appear in the music or photo apps, just QuickOffice and its own app from what I can remember.Wander7 - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I love that background with the light shreaking upwards towards the heavens.lunarx3dfx - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
Anand, could you let me know what build of the OS your touchpad is running? Ive noticed that the display models in stores are running build 16, whereas the release build is 41. I think there was some serious optimization done between those build, because ive had none of the performance issues experienced by reviewers on my touchpad. The experience is nice and snappy for me, albeit with the occasional stutter.Also, HP already announced that the first ota is due out by the end of this month with bug fixes and optimizations.
I personally love my touchpad, and hardly even use my computers anymore for anything other than working in office and playing games. My touchpad has practically replaced every other device I have. I love it.
Also, this was sent from my HP Touchpad. :-)