HP TouchPad (16GB) Review

The good: The HP TouchPad uses Palm's unique WebOS interface and delivers Adobe Flash-enabled Web browsing, Beats audio enhancement, and impressive compatibility with third-party calendar, messaging, and e-mail services.

The bad: The TouchPad has a thick, smudgy design, offers no rear camera or HD video capture, includes a limited app selection, and its unique cards system of multitasking isn't as fully utilized as it could be.

The bottom line: The TouchPad would have made a great competitor for the original iPad, but its design, features, and speed put it behind today's crop of tablet heavyweights.

HP could have taken the easy way out. Like many computer manufacturers today, HP could have easily jumped on the Google Android bandwagon, lobbed out a Honeycomb tablet, and called it a day. Instead, through hard work and some key acquisitions (most notably Palm), it set out to create an entire ecosystem of mobile hardware and software that could truly rival Apple's.

The HP TouchPad is one result of this effort. In a tablet market that is more or less split between Apple and Google, the TouchPad offers a refreshing alternative with a distinctly different take on how these types of devices should work, and how users interact with them.

Priced at $499 (16GB) and $599 (32GB) with no option (yet) for cellular data service, the HP TouchPad isn't priced like an underdog. It has the app catalog of an upstart, though, with a selection of native tablet apps that numbers in the hundreds and around 8,000 WebOS apps in total.

Is the TouchPad the perfect option for those fatigued by the iPad's app-centric tablet, or did HP miss its mark? Let's have a look.

Design
While the TouchPad's WebOS software is inspired and unique, its design is quite the opposite. Half an inch thick and wrapped in high-gloss plastic, the TouchPad's look and feel share more in common with a kitchen cutting board than the svelte designs of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 or iPad 2.

To be fair, the TouchPad's construction feels solid and worthy of HP's reputation for quality. It's the thickness and choice of materials that's throwing us off. After a few minutes of handling, the slippery plastic backing feels like a plate at a pizza party.

The HP TouchPad looks the part, but the plastic construction doesn't feel great.

We suspect HP's choice of materials has something to do with the TouchPad's special Touchstone inductive charging dock ($79), which uses an electromagnetic field to transfer power through the back of the tablet. Still, a textured finish like the one found on the Asus EeePad Transformer, would have gone a long way to diminish the ick factor. Sorry to be so fickle about the TouchPad's feel, but there's no way around the fact that tablets are handheld devices. This stuff really does matter, and frankly, not harping on it would be a disservice to all the great tablets out there that get it right--from the iPad all the way down to the Barnes & Noble Nook Color.

HP does nail down some of the standard design elements, such as the dedicated buttons for screen lock and volume control, along with an ample (though somewhat invisible) home screen button. Two slim speaker grilles are found on the left edge, making them unlikely to be covered by your hand while holding the tablet in landscape view. A standard headphone jack is located on the top edge, and a Micro-USB port is located on the bottom for charging and syncing.

Related links: TechRepublic's business perspective
• HP TouchPad leapfrogs rivals in productivity
• Three areas where HP TouchPad trumps the iPad
• Teardown of HP TouchPad

The choice of using a broadly compatible Micro-USB port is both refreshing, and surprisingly short-sighted. With so many of today's tablets making use of their dock connections for video output and other accessories, HP seems content to leave those features for version 2.0. On the upside, it's very easy to find a replacement charging cable.

We should also note that the TouchPad lacks a hardware switch for the screen rotation lock. The rotation lock function can be activated using a simple pull-down menu, but given the device's sensitive accelerometer, a dedicated switch like the one on the Acer Iconia Tab or iPad would have been more satisfying.

Features
Beauty is more than skin deep, and those desperate for new flavor of tablet may be willing to overlook our aesthetic gripes. You want to know if the TouchPad can deliver the goods--so here you go.

In terms of hardware, the TouchPad runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU APQ8060 1.2GHz processor and comes with either 16GB or 32GB of RAM. There's no option for memory card expansion. The front panel is a 1,024x768-pixel resolution capacitive display blessed with multitouch and connected to a graphics chip capable of rendering 3D graphics. Your location can be approximated using the integrated Wi-Fi (802.11n), but no GPS is included (though later models with wireless cellular data may offer it).

Another feature missing from the TouchPad is a rear-facing camera. Now, we take the camera criticism with a grain of salt, since the idea of capturing photos or videos on a tablet still feels absurd, even under the best circumstances. Still, it's nice to have the option, and it's one more spec the competition can point to.

You do get a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front, but good luck finding a use for it. Even with the stock messaging app synced with our Skype account, it was unclear how to initiate a video call. A task as basic as taking a self portrait seems impossible using only the preinstalled software. Our vanity may never recover.

To more practical matters, the TouchPad's core features revolve around the five main apps tucked in the home screen dock. These include the Web browser, e-mail, messaging, photos, and calendar.

The TouchPad's Web browser is clean and capable, but it is surprisingly not the standout feature we were hoping for. It's based on the WebKit engine common to most modern browsers and includes Adobe Flash compatibility right out of the box. Videos on YouTube play with no extra app required, and most Flash-heavy sites display with none of the missing plug-in icons we're used to seeing on the iPad. That said, the browser itself feels a little slow to load pages and we've seen Flash integration and playback handled better by devices like the BlackBerry PlayBook. Common browser preferences, such as pop-up blocking, cookie and JavaScript disabling, and cache clearing are all available from an intuitive pull-down menu. Missing are the bookmark folders, private browsing modes, and bookmark syncing found on iOS and Android.

The TouchPad's ability to triage e-mail is one of its standout features. During setup, the TouchPad prompts you to enter any and all of your e-mail accounts, including Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo, and more.

The TouchPad is an impressive tool for e-mail.

A three-pane view follows, which allows you to view your accounts, e-mail list, and e-mail preview all in a single view. E-mail replies pop out of the three-pane arrangement as a new window floating above your inbox, where it can be addressed immediately or toggled behind your inbox to deal with later. It's a distinctly different approach to e-mail than you'll find on the iPad, and one that better resembles the desktop computer method of multitasking and window juggling. For us, it's a natural fit, and composing e-mail and managing multiple inboxes feels intuitive.

Thank you :
http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/hp-touchpad-16gb/4505-3126_7-34499289.html#reviewPage1
http://techalife.com/news/HP-TouchPad-%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%82%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%99%E0%B9%81%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%81-1-%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%8E%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B5%E0%B9%89-%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%B2%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B4%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%A1-499
http://www.thaiware.com/news/news_detail.php?id=653&title=Tablet%20%B9%E9%CD%A7%E3%CB%C1%E8%C1%D2%E1%C5%E9%C7%201%20%A1.%A4.%20%B9%D5%E9%E0%BB%D4%B4%B5%D1%C7%20TouchPad%20%E3%AA%E9%C3%D0%BA%BA%20WebOS%20%A8%D2%A1%20HP
http://newsinabox.net/1569/new-hp-touchpad-pro-and-cons.html
http://www.widemagazine.com/content_detail.php?cont_id=994

http://www.siammono.com/hp-%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%88%E0%B8%B0%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%A7-touch-pad-wifi-%E0%B9%83%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%97/android/

BlackBerry PlayBook First Tablet Certified for US Federal Government

We have very significant news to share with our government customers – today the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet officially received FIPS 140-2 certification, the first tablet to ever have received this certification. With FIPS 140-2 certification, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can now be used by the U.S. federal government with confidence, knowing that it meets their policy requirements for securing and protecting sensitive data.

This absolutely underscores the commitment by Research In Motion® (RIM®) to building products that meet stringent security requirements of the US Federal Government.

There are a wide variety of smartphone and tablet products available on the market today, many of which don’t meet the highest level of security standards that government agencies demand. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry smartphones are clear exceptions.

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is a natural extension to the hundreds of thousands of BlackBerry® smartphones that are used in the Federal Government today. With the BlackBerry® Bridge™ application, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can be paired with a BlackBerry smartphone to provide secure access to information on the larger screen while keeping the data stored safely on the BlackBerry smartphone. Secure network communication is also extended to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in this manner, designed to allow the government to be assured that they can securely access applications and other critical data.

I’m pretty excited about the opportunities that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet presents for government agencies. Pilot projects to use the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet are already underway across the government and the use case scenarios are impressive. Give me a shout in the comments if you would like to discuss how the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet would fit into your agency or department.

BlackBerry PlayBook (16GB) Review

http://mobiletechupdatenews.blogspot.com/2011/07/blackberry-playbook-16gb-review.html

Thank you :
http://www.cookiecoffee.com/news/14805/playbook-blackberry-pad-spec
http://www.cookiecoffee.com/news/17926/blackberry-playbook-price-500-us-thailand-confirm
http://www.exgadgets.com/pc-computer/rim-%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%A7-blackberry-playbook/
http://www.tukkaeit.com/showthread.php?t=2673
http://blogs.blackberry.com/2011/07/playbook-government-certified/

BlackBerry PlayBook (16GB) Review

The good: RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook is a fast, powerful 7-inch tablet with HDMI output, advanced multitasking and security, and a browser that integrates Adobe Flash 10.2 for a desktop-style Web experience.

The bad: The 7-inch screen cramps the powerful browser, the wake button is almost impossible to push, and some stalwart features are only available when pairing a BlackBerry phone.

The bottom line: The BlackBerry PlayBook ably showcases RIM's powerful new mobile operating system, but its middling size diminishes many of its best features.

If you thought the tablet wars were just between Apple and Google, think again. Research In Motion may be late to the fight, but it is fighting for its life, and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet demonstrates that the company means business.

Like the Apple iPad, the PlayBook is available for as low as $499 (16GB), or as much as $599 (32GB) and $699 (64GB) if you need the extra capacity. For now, the tablet is restricted to Wi-Fi (though Bluetooth tethering is possible), with 4G models planned for later in the year.

Is it an iPad killer? For existing corporate and consumer BlackBerry devotees, the answer is certainly yes. For the rest of you, probably not. With its unapologetically small 7-inch screen, we're not even sure RIM intends it to compete directly with the iPad. More importantly, the PlayBook and its souped-up operating system point the way forward for RIM and the future of the BlackBerry brand.

Design
The BlackBerry PlayBook is probably the smallest high-profile tablet to come out in 2011. Measuring 5 inches tall, 7.5 inches wide, and a slim 0.4 inch thick, the PlayBook's design has more in common with the Galaxy Tab of 2010 than the 10-inch tablets making headlines this year. To RIM's credit, the PlayBook is the most powerful 7-inch tablet we've tested, and the lightweight design comes in under a pound.

One of the first things you'll notice about the PlayBook is the complete lack of buttons on the front. Like the Motorola Xoom, all of the PlayBook's navigation is handled using onscreen controls. A 0.7-inch bezel frames the 1,024x600-pixel-resolution screen, which is bordered by a pair of slender stereo speaker grilles. Above the screen you'll see a 3-megapixel camera staring back at you, along with an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts screen brightness. Flip the tablet over and you'll find another camera, this one a 5-megapixel job that can capture video at 1080p quality.

It's not all gravy, though. The top edge of the PlayBook is a case study in bad design. The problem is the power/wake button, which is so small and recessed that you'll need to whittle down your fingertip to use it. When placed within the extra layer of a case, the power button was almost impossible to press. It's a problem, and one you'll encounter every day since the button is the only means to wake the screen from sleep. The nimble fingered among us may be able to look past it, but for many it will be a deal breaker that ranks up there with BlackBerry thumb. Dedicated buttons for volume and play/pause are also located on the top, but their only real crime is redundancy.

The bottom of the PlayBook fares better and includes contacts for an optional charging dock ($69), Micro-USB (charging/sync), and Micro-HDMI. An HDMI cable isn't included, but we suggest buying one since the PlayBook's ability to crank out 1080p resolution video and mirror its OS onto your TV is one of its coolest features.


BlackBerry tablet OS
The single most important feature of the PlayBook is its operating system. RIM has candidly declared that the PlayBook's OS is more than just a new tablet platform, but the future for BlackBerry devices in general. In building the software from the ground up, RIM's goal was to create an OS that is a powerful, professionally oriented alternative to Android and iOS. We think RIM nailed it.

Aside from being buttery smooth and a multitasking dynamo, the PlayBook's OS is a dramatic change from the cramped, trackball-focused OS RIM built its name on. It bears more than a passing resemblance to Palm's resurrected WebOS, but arguably surpasses it in its quest for laptoplike performance.

There is a learning curve to finding your way around the PlayBook. Unlike iOS or Android, there's no home button to act as an anchor for the experience. Instead, there's a basic vocabulary of gestures you'll need to learn, such as swiping upward from beneath the screen to access apps, swiping down from the top bezel to access menus, or swiping from either the left or right bezel to bounce between open applications. It's a bit of a secret handshake to get it all down, but once you do, you can move swiftly, and the speed with which you can jump between running apps is noticeably faster than anything else out there. It's a dream tablet for anyone with attention deficit disorder. Like switching between applications on your computer, the PlayBook keeps your open apps running in parallel at full throttle and takes no time jumping right in.

Another aspect of the PlayBook's OS that has us smiling is the onscreen keyboard. The virtual keys are well-spaced and responsive. The overall tablet dimension and bezel size make it easy to reach your fingers across the screen. And in a design twist we think is pretty smart, RIM groups its numeric keyboard all on the left side, making number entry a little more natural (especially for fans of BlackBerry's tactile smartphone keyboard).

When connected to your computer, RIM's BlackBerry desktop software will take care of backing up your data and syncing your media collection (including songs and playlists from iTunes).

Desktop sync
Syncing media to your PlayBook from your computer isn't the simple drag-and-drop experience as on an Android device, or the time-honored iTunes sync of an iPod or iOS device. Instead, when you connect the PlayBook to a Mac or PC, a preloaded installer will pop up and run you through the BlackBerry Desktop software installation. The setup is fairly painless, and it gives you separate tabs for manually or automatically syncing various media, such as photos, music, and videos.

Another nifty advantage of RIM's software sync strategy is that it will take your PlayBook's unique BlackBerry PIN ID and map it to a persistent virtual drive on your computer. After the setup, your computer will maintain a wireless connection to your PlayBook over your home network, allowing you to send files to the device from the virtual drive on your computer. One use for this feature is quickly transferring a report or presentation to your PlayBook without taking it out of your bag and physically connecting it.

The PlayBook is chock-full of useful apps, but the standout here is the Web browser.

Thank you :
http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/blackberry-playbook-16gb/4505-3126_7-34185051.html?tag=productCarousel;carouselOverviews#reviewPage1
http://crackberry.com/blackberry-playbook-review
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http://www.devicemag.com/2010/10/25/blackberry-playbook-demo-live-on-stage-as-the-tablet-makes-its-first-official-debut-complete-demo-video-and-close-up-screenshots-of-playbook-inside/
http://smartair.biz/content/blogs/item/blackberry-playbook-demos

Toshiba Thrive (32GB) Review

The good: The Toshiba Thrive's very aggressive pricing gives it an advantage over most other tablets. Its grooved back, full HDMI and USB support, full SD card slot, and replaceable battery justify its very bulky design. Also, its built-in file management system makes finding and accessing files in Honeycomb easier.

The bad: The Thrive's bulky design and hefty weight are not for everyone. Also, awkward back camera placement and a difficult panel removal process make us wish more time had been spent in the design phase. The LED lights on the bezel can be distracting.

The bottom line: The Toshiba Thrive is a bulky but aggressively priced Honeycomb tablet that earns its girth with full port support and a removable battery.

Tablets are generally expected to be "thin and light" small computers with unobtrusive interfaces. Some tablets are thinner and lighter than others, however. While we've praised tablets like the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 for their sleekness and dinged the HP TouchPad for being too bulky, the Thrive poses an interesting question. Is a bulky tablet inherently a bad thing or can a tablet justify its extra mass?

Design
While most other tablets, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, show efforts to emulate Apple's thin, light, and minimalist iPad 2 design, Toshiba hurls the Thrive right into the soft, supple face of the notion that tablets should be designed this way. Sure, at 1.66 pounds the Thrive is relatively light compared with, say, a laptop or even a Netbook, but at that weight, it's as heavy as the heaviest tablet we've seen and its 0.63-inch depth makes it nearly twice as thick as either the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or the iPad 2.

	Toshiba Thrive	Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1	Apple iPad 2	T-Mobile G-Slate	HP TouchPad
Weight in pounds	1.66	1.24	1.34	1.38	1.6
Width in inches (landscape)	10.75	10.1	9.5	9.6	9.5
Height in inches	7	6.9	7.3	5.8	7.4
Depth in inches	0.63	0.34	0.34	0.49	0.45
Side bezel width in inches (landscape)	1	0.8	0.8	0.9	0.85

Toshiba's intent with the Thrive was to make a tablet that more closely met the needs of a typical laptop user, and as you can see from the specs above, the Toshiba Thrive is one of the heaviest, widest, and deepest tablets we've yet seen. As Honeycomb tablets go, it's very much the anti-Galaxy Tab 10.1. While the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is all smooth, sleek, sexy, and devoid of ports, the Thrive is anything but, and its measurements only tell half the story.

The Toshiba Thrive compared with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. We told you it was thick.

Upon picking up the Thrive, the first thing we noticed was its grooved back panel, which provides an easy-to-grip texture. While our model's panel was black, the panel is removable and can be swapped out for a panel in one of five other colors (green, purple, blue, pink, and silver), available for $20 each. Removing the panel requires that you dig your fingernails into the speaker indentations and then carefully, but firmly, pull back. Given the manner in which the panel is connected to the tablet, when pulling it off you may get the impression that you're breaking something, and although we didn't break anything, we can't rule out the possibility and we wish the panel came off more easily.

Once the panel is off, the removable battery can be accessed, removed, and finally swapped with an extra battery Toshiba has priced at $80. The battery measures 5.1x5.5 inches, with about a 0.25-inch depth. Removing the battery is simpler and easier than removing the back panel, although replacing both battery and panel is easy. There's also the option to lock the back panel into place, which seems unnecessary since it's pretty firmly attached once placed properly, and if locked and forgotten could easily cause someone to break it by trying to pull the panel off while it's in a locked state.

The back panel is removable and swappable with up to five other colors. The battery is revealed here. It's the large light gray plate on the left.

When held in landscape mode, the top of the tablet holds, from left to right, the power button, volume rocker, and rotation lock. Both the volume rocker and rotation lock are easily accessed, but the power button is embedded a tad too deeply and requires a more focused press to actually click. It's nowhere near as bad as the BlackBerry PlayBook's, which requires a pen to access properly, though.

On the opposite end of the top edge is the full-size SD card slot, which accepts cards of up to 128GB in capacity. Near the power button, on the bezel, are three LED indicator lights that glow to indicate when the power is on, when the battery's charging, or when wireless or Bluetooth is switched on. While you'd likely get used to the lights after a while, they're not typical of the tablet experience and can be distracting if you're looking for a completely clean interface.

On the bottom right side are the power and headphone jacks. Above them is a 3-inch-long door, concealing the full USB port, full HDMI port, and Mini-USB port. On each of the far sides of the bottom edge sit 1-inch-long speakers. In the middle of the bottom edge is a dock connector port.

The cameras are located on either side on the bezel in the middle of the tablet's left side. We found that when holding the Thrive in landscape mode, our fingers naturally blocked the rear lens. And while it's easy enough to move your finger down and out of the way, it's also less comfortable to hold it like that, especially given the tablet's heavier-than-average weight.

We think the Thrive's rear camera is ill-placed as evidenced by the fact that our fingers covered it virtually every time we turned it on.

Overall, the device feels solid and durable, and we found it comfortable to hold, if slightly bulky. Also, the edge where the back panel meets the end of the bezel feels a little sharp and was distracting when our fingers rubbed it.

Thank you : http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/toshiba-thrive-32gb/4505-3126_7-34836723.html#ixzz1SHgaeorq