HP ElitePad 900 Tablet

It's no secret that the tablet is (finally) starting to become an accepted form factor in SMB and enterprise businesses. To that end, HP is bucking the "bring your own device" trend by introducing the HP ElitePad 900, which runs the full Windows 8 instead of Android, Windows RT, or iOS operating systems.
The HP ElitePad 900 is built around the next-generation Intel Atom platform (aka Clover Trail) and a 10.1-inch widescreen tablet. We were able to handle one in a controlled environment recently, and here's what we saw.

The ElitePad 900 is a 10.1-inch tablet form factor with a 16:10 aspect ratio screen. The screen is bright and shows off the Windows 8 user interface well. The Gorilla Glass 2 protected screen has responsive capacitive touch, and we were able to touch type on it. Its on-screen keyboard is as responsive as the Apple iPad's, but of course using the Windows 8 interface.


Since it's a business tablet, the ElitePad 900 has quite a few accessories. The HP ElitePad Docking Station is an almost must-buy for each of your workers. Using the Docking Station, the ElitePad becomes similar to an all-in-one desktop. You can pair a wireless keyboard to the ElitePad for extended typing sessions. HP also offers a range of "smart jacket" cases for the ElitePad to extend the tablet's capabilites. For example, the tablet itself lacks connectors like HDMI and USB, but the Expansion Jacket gives you those options. The combo makes the ElitePad look like a tablet with a cocoon-type case on it. HP's Productivity Jacket includes an integrated keyboard, in case you want your ElitePad to act like a laptop. The Rugged Jacket increases the ElitePad's drop capabilities and makes it more appropriate to use outdoors in the field. HP also offers a Jacket Battery to supplement the ElitePad 900's internal battery. The Jacket Battery slots in between one of the Smart Jackets and the ElitePad.

IT folks have resisted the addition of individual user's tablets to their infrastructure for two main reasons: lack of control over the tablet's security, and incompatibilities with the enterprise's core programs. HP has addressed this by making the ElitePad 900 compatible with its Client Security suite, HP BIOS protection, and with LANDesk tools for asset management and network security. Since the ElitePad runs Windows 8, you won't have to recompile your internally developed programs for another OS, which you probably must do to support iOS, Android, or even WinRT. Another IT plus is the fact that the ElitePad 900 is IT-serviceable, including screens, chassis, battery, memory, and storage.

The ElitePad 900 comes with 2GB of memory, a 64GB SSD for primary storage, 1,280 by 800 resolution (16:10) 10.1-inch screen, dual band Wi-Fi, optional 4G WWAN radio, and optional capacitive pen/stylus support. It measures 0.36 by 7 by 10.28 inches (HWD) independent of the Smart Jackets, so it's longer but roughly the size of an iPad. It feels comfortable in the hand, is under two pounds (though there's no official weight yet). It's got a built-in 1080p and an 8-megapixel webcam, along with the other features we've come to expect from tablets (accelerometers, GPS, voice transcription). Pricing is still to be determined, but we're expecting it to cost as much as a high-end tablet from iOS or Android makers. The ElitePad 900 will be available in January 2013, so look for it around CES time. 

HP TouchPad (Wi-Fi)

• Pros
Top-notch, intuitive user interface. Fast performance. 9.7-inch, 4:3 screen excellent for video and photos. Synergy features make integrating with social networks and websites easy. Strong Facebook app.
• Cons
App is selection is limited at launch. No rear-facing camera or video-recording capabilities. Screen sometimes needs multiple taps. Almost twice as thick as the iPad 2.
• Bottom Line
With solid hardware and a user-friendly operating system based around multitasking and intuitive organization, the HP TouchPad is the best non-Apple tablet we've tested. There aren't a lot of apps yet, but Android Honeycomb tablet manufacturers should be a little nervous.

With all the attention lavished upon would-be tablet competitors to the Apple iPad, like the Motorola Xoom ($599, 3.5 stars) and the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook ($499, 3 stars), HP's webOS-based TouchPad has mostly flown under the radar. That should change rather quickly, though. HP, which has allegedly been designing the TouchPad since day one of its Palm acquisition more than a year ago, did something rare: The company waited until the product was ready to release it. The TouchPad is the antithesis of the PlayBook or the Xoom, which were both initially released with major features missing. The TouchPad, on the other hand, is a fully formed, well-conceived, well-designed tablet with a graceful operating system, and a unique approach to multitasking, and it comes with all of its features activated. There's room for improvement—a wider app selection and a rear-facing camera would've been nice—but the TouchPad offers a more enjoyable user experience than any of the current wave of Android Honeycomb tablets. It's no iPad, but it's the best non-Apple tablet we've seen yet.
Pricing, Design
Currently, the TouchPad is available with Wi-Fi only (16GB, $499 or 32GB, $599). HP says the tablet will eventually be offered on AT&T, but connectivity details, pricing, and timing have yet to be announced.

Measuring 7.5 by 9.5 by 0.6 inches, the TouchPad is almost twice as thick as the iPad 2, but otherwise similar in its dimensions and display size. The 9.7-inch, 1,024-by-768-pixel touch-screen LCD matches the iPad's size and resolution. And it has the same 4:3 aspect ratio, rather than the longer and thinner 16:9 screen many tablets, like the Motorola Xoom, use. The display is surrounded by a logo-free, flat black bezel, which also houses the front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera lens up top and the Home button below. The glossy black plastic on the back panel attracts fingerprints and features little more than the HP logo—there is no rear-facing camera. Rounded side panels house the few controls and connections on the tablet: a Power/Wake button, Volume controls, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a micro USB connection for the syncing/charging cable. There's also a pair of integrated stereo speakers. It's nice that there is stereo separation here, but, as is typical with tablet speakers, they don't sound great very good. Also typical (and unfortunate): The TouchPad doesn't come with earphones, but you do get a cleaning cloth and a USB sync cable that plugs into the included wall charger.

As far as what's under the hood, the TouchPad is the first tablet we've tested built around the Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core APQ8060 1.2GHz processor. All Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets thus far have used Nvidia's dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2. At 1.2GHz, the Qualcomm processor is more powerful in theory, but there aren't any benchmark apps like the ones we use to test Android tablets right now, so there's no way to prove this. In actual use, there wasn't an obvious processor performance difference between the TouchPad and other Honeycomb tablets. (More on overall performance in a minute.) The TouchPad also integrates 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, as well as Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR.

WebOS 3.0
HP's webOS 3.0 takes an original approach to multitasking, and this functionality is at the core of the TouchPad's impressive user interface. Everything—apps, browser windows, videos, photos, and more—can be minimized to "card" size with a downward swipe or a tap on the Home button. When in card-viewing mode (which is how the home screen is configured), you scroll through live thumbnails of every app, window, or file you have open. If you want to close an app, just flick the card upward, and it flies off your screen.

The home screen/multi-tasking card view is by itself a smart way of dealing with the tablet's simultaneous functions, but the stacking feature is one of webOS's more useful tricks. If you're browsing multiple windows online, they can either be shown next to each other for easy scrolling, or be stacked on top of each other. All of this is done with simple swipes, and it's hard to accidentally stack or unstack cards. Any card can be stacked with any other card, and stacking a photo with a note, an email message, and a Web page is dead-simple. Apple's iOS allows for grouping apps into folders, but all you see in these folders is icons representing the apps you put in them. In webOS, you see whatever the actual window is showing. If you have a presentation you're working on and you need to do research online and organize some photos for it, all of these different windows—the photos, the Word docs, the websites—can all sit in one tidy stack. It's easily the best multitasking layout we've seen in a tablet OS thus far. On a Honeycomb tablet, you see (very) minimized snapshots of your open apps in the multitasking bar. In webOS, the cards are large enough to see what they contain, there's a card for every file or window rather than one for every app, and cards can be organized to an extent that neither Honeycomb nor iOS allows.

Visually, webOS is probably most similar to RIM's BlackBerry Tablet OS. Despite our overall rating of the released-too-soon PlayBook, the tablet's OS is well-designed and easy on the eyes. Apple's iOS remains the most intuitive of the tablet user interfaces, but it's becoming clear that Apple will need to feature more real-time multitasking views and organizational tools in future iOS versions. Honeycomb is quite customizable, but can feel cluttered at times. WebOS 3.0 is a much cleaner approach. It's almost ironic, since one of Google's great strengths has been rethinking how users approach organization, such as with conversations in Gmail. HP's webOS stacks are downright Googlian.
A homepage toolbar is found at the bottom of the screen. It comes with Web (the browser), Email, Calendar, Messaging, and Photos & Videos preloaded alongside an arrow button which opens up the Launcher window. This is where you'll find all of your apps, downloads, the Settings menu, and access to the HP App Catalog. The bar can be customized to show whatever apps you want, but it holds a maximum of five apps at once.

Notifications are designed to be less invasive on the TouchPad than on Honeycomb tablets, but the end result is very similar: When you get an email message, a notification appears in the margin of your window, not in the middle of your screen where it could block content (which is the iPad's way of handling notifications). WebOS groups like notifications, letting you scroll through different email subject lines in the notification area.

Free apps for HP touchpad

A 23-inch tablet; HP TouchSmart 610-1065qd

Pros
Tilting and reclining screen. Large touch screen panel. Blu-ray. Wireless keyboard and mouse. Massive entertainment possibilities. USB 3.0. Quad core power. Two HDMI-in ports. 15-month subscription to Norton Internet Security. Responsive touchscreen. Great touch interface. HP LinkUp remote control software. Beats Audio sound enhancements. True 1080p HD.

Cons
No eSATA. No unified media purchase system. External power brick.

Bottom Line
Thanks to some amazing innovations, the quad-core-equipped HP TouchSmart 610-1065qd all-in-one desktop moves the touch screen from the novelty phase to the seriously usable phase, and that's worth full marks in my book.

Design
Like many modern all-in-one desktops, the PC components are built into the screen (we've seen some in which the components are built into the base). It has a good range of vertical motion (height adjustment) and even tilts forward about 5 degrees, so you can compute from a reclined position.

The real innovation is in the 610-1065qd's tilt and recline function. Once the screen is tilted back fully, it actually slides down further, so it ultimately tilts back 60 degrees. It's not quite horizontal, but 60 degrees back allows the user to use the touchscreen without holding his arm straight out, parallel to the ground. You can even rest your hand on the speaker bar as a sort of wrist rest. When the 610-1065qd is in the fully reclined position, users will find it easy to use the touchscreen from a seated or standing position. This configuration is better than just laying the screen on the work surface: Anyone who uses an Apple iPad or other tablet will be able to tell you that a true horizontal 90 degree angle isn't much more comfortable than straight up either. You'll tend to hunch up and strain your shoulders if you're hovering directly over a screen.

The touchscreen itself is large and bright. If you're using it close enough to touch regularly, you certainly won't miss the extra 4 inches of screen space that you get in the Apple iMac 27-inch (Core i5). At less than three feet away, the TouchSmart 610-1065qd's screen is huge. The screen has a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 (true 1080p HD), and while that's less than the 2,560 by 1,440 resolution of the iMac 27-inch, using true 1080p HD resolution makes more sense for the applications you're going to be using on the TouchSmart 610. The TouchSmart 610 can display the full resolution from the built-in HDTV tuner, built-in Blu-ray player, or 1080p streaming videos without having to frame the video with black bars or blow the picture up beyond native resolution (as on the iMac). (The TV tuner can only receive over-the-air HD channels, and few people will actually use it. Still, it's a nice extra to have.) The iMac 27-inch's higher resolution is made more for graphics pros who need the workspace to create media like photos and videos. For most users, the TouchSmart 610-1065qd is a perfect HD media consumption device.

HP Compaq 6000 Pro All-in-one Business PC (ENERGY STAR) VS886UT#ABA

 Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 32-bit
 HP 150W External Power Supply
 Energy Star 5.0 Label
 Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E5500 Processor (2.80 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
 Intel® Q43 Express
 2GB PC3-10600 SODIMM Memory 1x2GB
 250GB SATA 3.5 1st Hard Drive
 Integrated Graphics
 AiO HD Webcam & Array Microphone
 Integrated Intel 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
 HP Slim Tray Load 8X SuperMulti Drive
 HP PS/2 AiO Optical Mouse
 AiO HD Webcam & Array Microphone
 3 years parts, labor and onsite service (3/3/3) standard warranty. Certain restrictions and exclusions apply.