HP's TouchPad is good, but it's no iPad 2

OK, you can buy that iPad 2 now.

That's my message to those of you who've been holding back as ahost of major companies unveiled their answers to Apple Inc.'simmensely popular tablet computer. Why would anyone have bought aniPad earlier in the year, when rivals like Motorola Corp. andBlackBerry creator Research In Motion LLC were rushing new productsto market?

And then there's Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's biggestcomputer company. What about their new tablet, the TouchPad?

Well, the news from HP is pretty good. The TouchPad is the bestiPad alternative so far, combining decent performance with anexcellent user interface. It's price-competitive with the iPad 2 aswell - $499 with Wi-Fi Internet access and 16 gigabytes of memory,or $599 with 32 gigs. But as a new product, the TouchPad can't beginto match the iPad's huge library of apps and accessories, andthere's no reason to think the TouchPad will ever catch up.

For one thing, HP's tablet doesn't make a great first impressionwhen set alongside an iPad 2. The iPad is thin and sleek, with abrushed-metal casing that hides fingerprints. By contrast, theTouchPad looks and feels plump, and even a little greasy. It'sthicker and heavier than the iPad, with a black plastic casing thatsmudges the moment you touch it.

The case supports an inductive charging system called Touchstone,which is available as an $80 option. Just drop the tablet onto theTouchstone cradle and it recharges right through the case, withoutthe need to attach a wire. It's a slightly more convenient chargingoption, but hardly worth the extra money.

I hated the iPad 2's lousy rear-facing camera, but at least it'sgot one. The only camera on the TouchPad is front-facing, for use invideo calling. The tablet has built-in access to the popularInternet video calling service Skype. Setting up a video call was alot more confusing than it should have been, but it finally cametogether. Video was the usual pixellated mess, but the voice claritywas quite good. Indeed, the TouchPad's speakers are the best on anytablet, and excellent for listening to your favorite tunes.

The TouchPad's computing performance is decent, but hardlyimpressive. No way should a tablet take a full minute to boot up,especially one with a muscular dual-core processor. And some appscan take rather longer to launch than they should. It's not a make-or-break problem, but a little disappointing.

Still, once your apps launch, running them on the TouchPad isdelightful, thanks to WebOS, the tablet's superb operating system.WebOS displays all programs as "cards" that either fill the screenor cluster in reduced form at its center. Multiple browser windowsresemble a stack of cards lying atop one another. Touch a corner ofthe card, and that window fills the screen; or make a flickingmotion to the top of the screen, and the window scrolls up anddisappears. Getting around on the iPad should be so easy.

Better still are the TouchPad's custom-built apps, which line upinformation in overlapping columns. Say you've got multiple e-mailaccounts. The leftmost column of the e-mail app lists theseaccounts. In the middle is a listing of the messages in yourmailbox, and on the right appears the full text of any message youhighlight. The tablet's Facebook app boasts a similar layout, and isthe best such app I've seen on any tablet. And the TouchPad'spotential as a learning tool is on full display in its outstandingapp for Khan Academy, the Internet service that features hundreds offree educational videos, mostly related to math and science.

Still, given Apple's dominance in tablets, HP will be lucky toscore even a modest sliver of market share. Competing devicesrunning Google Inc.'s Android operating system are still in thegame. Lots of companies make Android devices, so lots of softwaredevelopers write apps for them. But the TouchPad`s unique WebOSsoftware is its fatal weakness. Unless this tablet becomes a massivehit with consumers, the present inventory of 300 TouchPad apps willnever grow enough to match the huge inventory of Apple and Androidsoftware.

There was a time when a daring company could bring a uniquetablet computer to market, and turn it into a world-changingsuccess. Unfortunately for HP, that time was last year.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.

A TABLET AT WORK

Watch the HP TouchPad in action and read reviews of other modelsat www.boston.com

/business.

07Techlab.ART