Gadgetory

why on earth would we do a review of a tablet that's almost two years old well it was never officially released to the public so to us it's brand-new I'm Adam Dow this is PocketNow comm and this is our hands-on review of the HP TouchPad go the HP TouchPad go was to be HP's 7-inch offering in the tablet space view out in fall of 2011 it would have been one of the first 7-inch tablets ever two months prior to its release however then CEO of HP Leo Apotheker abruptly ceased all webOS hardware operations and the dozens of touchpad go production models were relegated to be destroyed they didn't all complete their soldier into the dumpster however as several have popped up in the hands of HP employees eBay buyers and most recently me the touchpad go is exactly what you would expect it is it's a tiny touchpad the seven-inch diagonal screen has a resolution of 1024 by 768 with an unimpressive pixel density of 183 PPI that said the 1.5 gigahertz dual-core Snapdragon processor and one gigabyte of RAM still measure up even by today's standards rounding out the specifications we have 16 gigabytes of online storage radios for Wi-Fi Bluetooth AT&T cellular 3g and GPS the whole unit is a beefy 13 millimeters thick but feels great in the hand due to the soft touch backplate the touchpad go also sports two cameras but that's where the camera excitement ends the front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera is adequate for video calling and that's about it the rear facing five megapixel shooter supports a single LED flash but lacks autofocus meaning you'd be better served bringing the pre three with you if you plan to capture any special moments moving inside we have a tablet running the webOS that we all know and love this particular unit came loaded with web OS 3.0 point two two versions older than the latest release there is a doctor available to load web OS 3.0 point five but given the limited nature of the touchpad gos availability we opted to stick with what was there and not risk anything if you find yourself in possession of one of these gems freeware the ultra homebrew collection of patches and scripts becomes necessary rather than a nice addition it is through pre ware and a collection of homebrew apps and patches that you can trick HP servers into thinking that this is the real touchpad and not a touchpad go so that you can activate the device sign into or create a new profile and access the app catalog the interface is exactly the same as a 10-inch touchpad including cards stacks tossing cards away slingshotting cards away and even includes the famous Angry Birds Easter Egg slingshot unfortunately the same holds true of the app ecosystem which sad to say is even more depleted now than ever before while most of the basics are there games social media productivity you'll be hard-pressed to find the more popular apps of today even apps like the incredibly popular glimpse are no longer supported on the webOS platform the apps you do find though will perform very well email gaming notifications all perform swimmingly on the 1.5 gigahertz dual-core processor that this little baby packs at one point we had over two dozen apps open simultaneously with little noticeable lag battery life is a bit of a concern now we're not sure if this is because it's a two-year-old battery some optimizations are just not there or what-have-you but we could only manage about a day of light to moderate usage no doubt heavy users would have no problem draining the battery in far less time especially if using the go for something like navigation and speaking of navigation while this device does indeed sport a gps chip there were no on device controls to turn the Jeep yes on or off once again we had to turn to pre wear which had an app designed to toggle the GPS on a phone it seemed to work if the built-in navigation software was to be believed but we couldn't get it to lock on to any satellites even when outside on a clear day seems the software was just not there yet overall the touchpad go would have been superior to its older and bigger brother in many ways if it had been finished as it stands today it is a passable tablet companion but falls very short of today's 7-inch iOS or Android equivalents including the Kindle Fire while the hardware is on pace with current gen devices the score takes a battery size hit and of course as has long been the case with webOS the user experience score is superb while the software score drags it down like a boat anchor we had to give the touchpad go an overall score of 7.3 that's gonna do it for our hands-on review of the touchpad go the little tablet that could HP just wouldn't let it if you liked the video give us a thumbs up or share you can subscribe and or follow us in all the usual places you can follow me on twitter at dead technology once again I am Adam Dowd with pocketnow.com and I thank you for watching