HP Touchpad

I managed to get my hands on a 16GB HP Touchpad during the firesale. I'm enjoying using WebOS very much there are some great features. I especially like the multitasking and the notifications. Android and IOS certainly have a lot to learn, I'm very glad Matias Duarte (Palm's previous vice president of human interface and user experience) is now at Google.

The biggest downside to the card multitasking approach is that there isn't much of a home screen or desktop. There is the dock but you can't fit much in it and while the app drawer is more useable than any of the competition but would be nice to have somewhere else to keep more frequently used apps.

I also find it interesting that the Touchpad is one of the few tablets with a vibration motor. I wonder why despite putting vibration motors in their phones manufacturers don't put them in tablets. I appreciate the extra level of feedback you get when you make a selection in an important menu or your battery starts running out. Unfortunatly not many developers have used the functionality, it would have been interesting to see what could have been done.

I'm very excited to see what the Android community is going to do with the hardware, especially seeing as I'd very much like to have an £89 Android tablet to develop on. I do miss the sim card slot and the oppertunities to have data without Wifi but I suppose I could always use the Wifi Hotspot on my Nexus S when out and about.

It's a real shame that the TouchPad wasn't given more time in the market. Not only because the extra competition in the tablet market was good for everyone but the built-in inductive charging was a unique selling point that might have been the starting pistol in the race for that technology.

Of course when built-in induction charging (I don't count Powermat) does take off finally there'll be the inevitable format war until eventually a specification is reached but I doubt it will be a very long time. It's taken a ridiculously long time just to get micro USB in some phones!