As the title says, my WiFi network is now playing host to a 16GB HP TouchPad. And maybe it’s just my tablet newbie-ness, but I’m not getting what all the fuss is about re: thickness.

Granted, my Fujitsu pen computer (whose location is now unknown…) is probably closing in on 1-inch of girth. But looking at the TouchPad, I’m convinced that a thinner device might still be comfortable to hold but I can’t imagine that it would be any more comfortable to hold.

Now I know that HP wrote off the TouchPad hardware for a number of reasons – not just an inability to compete with iPad on the thickness front – but personally I think that the “thin-is-in” mantra is just more good marketing being thrown our way.

Anyhow, on the software front I can say that webOS isn’t as smooth as Android, and most definitely can’t hold a candle to iOS. But if you read a previous article you’ll discover what I find most alluring about webOS, performance issues aside. I’m currently in the process of adding patches to make the interface that much more snappy, and the major project at present is to enable streaming of my network video and TV shows. DLNA (or uPnP) is the name of the game here, and it’s requiring a certain amount of synergy between client and server that I haven’t quite mastered yet.

But so far I’m relatively content. More later.

[update 2011/12/16]

So I’ve had the TouchPad running for almost two months now.  And like most people’s TouchPad experiences, the road hasn’t been entirely smooth.

It all started when I tried to do the initial setup of the TouchPad while tethered to my phone’s WiFi hotspot. The tablet kept complaining that it couldn’t reach the HP servers.  Not knowing if this was an HP issue or a carrier issue or what, I didn’t think much else of it.

I had the same problem using my main WiFi network at home, but again, I figured maybe the HP servers were overloaded.

Many attempts later, I finally completed the setup.  And my main problem was spotty WiFi performance.

I posted a thread over at forums.precentral.net (now webosnation.com) detailing the problem, so you can head over if you want the juicy details (and an idea of how many other TP users have comm. issues).  The Coles Notes version: I had no problem accessing my intranet resources over WiFi, but browsing the interwebs at-large was a hit-or-miss affair.

As a result I finally settled on setting up an Apache forward proxy instance, and considering that the TP tends to “live” at home, this solution has proven acceptable.

So what’s my almost-two-months impression of the tablet?

Truthfully it’s getting the intended job done.  I have to admit that there are some usability issues related to the browser (which, in general, I knew to have some issues before ever joining the webOS camp) – most notably, accessing Hotmail requires some patience. But for the most part it’s quite enjoyable, and having Flash makes things very nice indeed.  That I’ve had no issues with Flash videos running fullscreen up to 720p – added bonus.

So I tend to use the tablet mainly for browsing, and this may involve logging into my Google account via the browser and catching up on Google Reader news.  Or I may surf Engadget.  Or CNN.  Or whatever.  It works, and it works well.

I’ve also taken to setting up a Google account specifically for family use, and this account is in fact linked to the TouchPad.  Now, you may recall some concerns I had about a house guest being able to pick up the tablet and read personal information.  But I figured… the main point of this “family” Google account is to setup a synced calendar.  This is no more private or public to a house guest than the calendar hanging on the fridge that we (attempt) to use to track events of relevance to the family.  So the privacy concerns are somewhat moot.  Add in the ability for said Google calendar to sync across the TouchPad, my phone, and Shelly’s phone – automagically – and you have an appealing organizational tool.

Granted, Shelly has asked me more than once about these calendar entries I keep inserting into her calendar… but that’s beside the point 🙂

So for web browsing and family organization, the TouchPad is useful.  Whatever about media consumption then?

I talked previously about DLNA, and I’m happy to say that the combination of bHome and TouchPlayer and PS3 Media Server results in a (mostly) enjoyable experience of viewing network-stored videos on the TouchPad.  I say “mostly”, because sometimes it takes a few finger-taps in bHome for TouchPlayer to actually start playing the video, but usually it just works.  TouchPlayer has some kinks that need to be worked out – most notable a less-than stellar scrub feature – but the ability to play my MPEG2, Windows Media Video and DivX vids on the TouchPad without real-time transcoding?  Priceless 🙂

So am I pining for an ICS port on the TouchPad?  It would be nice to play with, but from what I’ve seen of ICS, it looks a lot like the Honeycomb experience that I already pooh-pooh’d on a tablet form-factor.  Sure, the apps must be fantastically wicked awesome, but I’m quite happy with the fact that I can pick up the TouchPad, get a specific task done, then put it down without feeling obliged to interact with apps just for the sake of interacting with apps.

The web is the OG “app” my friends.  You bettah ask somebody!

[update 2012/02/25]

Just wanted to say that I’m now rocking ICS on ye olde TouchPad. O still think that WebOS wipes the floor with Google’s offering, but I just can’t deny the: polished state of ICS vs. WebOS; the mountain of apps that is Google Market.

Yes yes yes… I know that I wrote previously stating that the web is a great alternative to mobile apps. But there are just some things that a website simply can’t do (at least on a tablet) – like connect to my servers using RDP.

I still think the card metaphor of WebOS is light-years ahead of what any other tablet OS has to offer (save perhaps Blackberry’s PlayBook OS, but we all know where that got its inspiration from…). But… WebOS is struggling for developer attention, Android isn’t. And it shows, both in the available app catalog as well as in the OS itself.

It’s a shame really 😦