Palm faithful and newcomers alike, behold: the TouchPad review. For some, this has been years in the making, for others (honestly, for most) this is a new and potentially interesting blip on the tablet radar. The team that brought you webOS — for better or worse — has now graduated the platform to pad status, with the help (and cash) of HP. According to the company, the TouchPad marks the kickoff of its hard push into the hearts and minds of the slate-buying public, as well as a rebirth of sorts for Palm’s unrealized ambitions. The iPad-like device will be showing up on store shelves, online, and in advertisements meant to reintroduce not only webOS, but HP as a consumer brand worth knowing (and loving, presumably). The company hopes that the TouchPad will pave the way for its newly-acquired operating system to live on PCs, printers, phones, and more — all talking to one another in a self-contained and self-sustaining ecosystem.
The TouchPad has its work cut out for it, of course. The $499 / $599 10-inch slate is entering a market currently dominated by Apple’s iPad and crowded by me-too Android devices. HP believes the breadth of its reach in retail and the superiority of webOS as a platform will convince buyers and developers that the product can be more than just an also-ran. I’ve been putting the device through its paces for the last week or so (along with an early version of the Pre 3), and can tell you whether those claims are backed up by reality, or just an unanswered wish in HP’s hope-chest. Read on after the break for all the details in my full review of the TouchPad!
Hardware / Industrial design
Okay, I won’t beat around the bush. The TouchPad looks a lot like the original iPad. Sure, it’s missing the aluminum backing and some of the harder lines, but the general shape, button placement, and size just scream iPad — and it doesn’t help that the screen is the identical dimensions and aspect ratio. There are only so many ways to slice these devices, but it would have been nice to see HP get a little more daring on the look and feel of the general industrial design of this product. Of course, the TouchPad is rather thick — as thick as the original iPad and way thicker than the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 10.1. Comparatively, the TouchPad clocks in at 0.54 inches, while the iPad 2 and Tab both hit 0.34 inches. That may not sound like much on paper, but it’s a pretty hefty difference that you definitely notice when you have the device in hand.
You also notice the plasticky feel of the hardware. The TouchPad is made up largely of piano black, high-gloss plastic. A single piece of this material makes up the back and sides of the slate, while up front there’s a Gorilla Glass-coated LCD display, broken only by a small webcam at the top of the device (in portrait), and a thin home button at the bottom. Along the right side is a volume rocker, while you get two speakers on the left (the stereo sound is a nice touch). The bottom houses a Micro USB port, while a power / sleep button lives on the top right edge of the tablet.
In all, the feel of the device is a touch on the cheaper side of things; I certainly wouldn’t describe it as “premium.” Even though the TouchPad has a substantial weight (1.6 pounds), the unit seems cookie cutter (for lack of a better term) in your hands. I also noticed some very slight squeakiness and movement with the plastic around the speaker grill on the lower left side of the slate, which didn’t inspire confidence (though build quality is far superior to previous Palm phones). A soft touch coating would have gone a long way to improving the feel of the device (something along the lines of what the company has done on the Pre 3) — or HP could have simply used a better material for the housing. It’s not a tragedy, but I walked away underwhelmed with the design on the tablet — it’s nice to look at, but does nothing to stand out from the pack.
2011年6月29日 星期三
2011年4月18日 星期一
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) review
With Android 3.0 Google is striking back against Apple, creating an OS that's entirely designed to be run on the high-resolution, large screens devices, rather than expanding the smartphone edition to simply fill the screen.
To this end, the OS has been given an entire overhaul, although there's enough similarity to the smartphone versions that it's easy enough to pick up and use. We previewed the OS using the Android Developer Kit, but we've got our first Android 3.0 tablet in, so have decided to give the OS its own review.
One of the biggest changes with Android 3.0 is that there are no hardware navigation buttons any more.
Android 3.0 Home Screen
Instead, back, home and menu are all soft buttons located in a bar at the bottom of the screen. Depending on the application, this bar is either always visible or it slides out of the way when it's not being used - tapping the bottom of the screen restores it. Given the larger screen size of a tablet, not having any buttons makes lots of sense and makes Android 3.0 easy to navigate.
We love the new task switcher button, which brings up a thumbmail list of recent applications. Just tap the one you want to switch to it. It's much more elegant than the iPad 2's system.
Widgets
One of the best things about Android is its customisable home screens. This remain in Android 3.0, with five screens available. Widgets and shortcuts can be added by pressing the Plus button. This brings up a list of shortcuts and widgets, plus it shows a thumbnail view of every home screen. All you have to do is drag and drop the app you want on to the right screen, plus you can tap a home screen to jump to it quickly.
Android 3.0 Widgets
A grid system is used to place widgets and icons, but it's a smart system that keeps the relative position of objects when moving from landscape to portrait. For example, place a widget in the top right of the screen and it will be there in both landscape and portrait orientations.
Switching between home screens is just as easy as on a smartphone, only the 3D animation is a little bit slicker to watch.
Power and settings
Settings are housed in the notification block at the bottom of the screen when you tap the clock. From here you can access the main settings page, jump straight to Wi-Fi settings, put the tablet in flight mode, adjust screen brightness and lock the orientation of the screen.
Android 3.0 Screen
This works well enough and it's good to have shortcuts to some of these features, but there's no easy way to turn off certain devices to save power, such as Bluetooth and GPS. In fact, there's no longer a widget for power control, which seems like an odd omission to us. You can still buy these from the Market, such as with Beautiful Widgets, but we don't understand why it's not there in the first place.
The new settings menu is an improvement. While it's the same layout as the smartphone edition, the menu is always visible in one panel. Select an entry and its options open in another panel. It's a slight tweak, but makes it easier to change options.
Notifications
While the smartphone edition had a notification bar at the top, which you had to pull down, Android 3.0 uses the bottom bar. This shows you when you've got new texts and emails. You don't need to pull the bar up, though, just tap the icon you're interested in for more information, then tap that pop-up to view the data in the app that triggered the notification, such as Gmail.
Again, it's not a big departure from the smartphone editions of Android, but makes more sense on a larger screen with a higher resolution.
To this end, the OS has been given an entire overhaul, although there's enough similarity to the smartphone versions that it's easy enough to pick up and use. We previewed the OS using the Android Developer Kit, but we've got our first Android 3.0 tablet in, so have decided to give the OS its own review.
One of the biggest changes with Android 3.0 is that there are no hardware navigation buttons any more.
Android 3.0 Home Screen
Instead, back, home and menu are all soft buttons located in a bar at the bottom of the screen. Depending on the application, this bar is either always visible or it slides out of the way when it's not being used - tapping the bottom of the screen restores it. Given the larger screen size of a tablet, not having any buttons makes lots of sense and makes Android 3.0 easy to navigate.
We love the new task switcher button, which brings up a thumbmail list of recent applications. Just tap the one you want to switch to it. It's much more elegant than the iPad 2's system.
Widgets
One of the best things about Android is its customisable home screens. This remain in Android 3.0, with five screens available. Widgets and shortcuts can be added by pressing the Plus button. This brings up a list of shortcuts and widgets, plus it shows a thumbnail view of every home screen. All you have to do is drag and drop the app you want on to the right screen, plus you can tap a home screen to jump to it quickly.
Android 3.0 Widgets
A grid system is used to place widgets and icons, but it's a smart system that keeps the relative position of objects when moving from landscape to portrait. For example, place a widget in the top right of the screen and it will be there in both landscape and portrait orientations.
Switching between home screens is just as easy as on a smartphone, only the 3D animation is a little bit slicker to watch.
Power and settings
Settings are housed in the notification block at the bottom of the screen when you tap the clock. From here you can access the main settings page, jump straight to Wi-Fi settings, put the tablet in flight mode, adjust screen brightness and lock the orientation of the screen.
Android 3.0 Screen
This works well enough and it's good to have shortcuts to some of these features, but there's no easy way to turn off certain devices to save power, such as Bluetooth and GPS. In fact, there's no longer a widget for power control, which seems like an odd omission to us. You can still buy these from the Market, such as with Beautiful Widgets, but we don't understand why it's not there in the first place.
The new settings menu is an improvement. While it's the same layout as the smartphone edition, the menu is always visible in one panel. Select an entry and its options open in another panel. It's a slight tweak, but makes it easier to change options.
Notifications
While the smartphone edition had a notification bar at the top, which you had to pull down, Android 3.0 uses the bottom bar. This shows you when you've got new texts and emails. You don't need to pull the bar up, though, just tap the icon you're interested in for more information, then tap that pop-up to view the data in the app that triggered the notification, such as Gmail.
Again, it's not a big departure from the smartphone editions of Android, but makes more sense on a larger screen with a higher resolution.
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