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Android Phone Tips

Android Phone Tips
Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad tablet went on sale in U.S. stores Friday. The TouchPad enters a market dominated by Apple's iPad, and which also includes Research In Motion's Playbook and a panoply of Android tablets from numerous vendors. "Android tablets are not selling to the extent OEMs expected. WebOS may be a reasonable alternative," Epps said. TouchPad's with cellular connectivity are due at a later date. It also supports Adobe Flash, unlike the iPad but the same as most Android tablets. 

TouchPad sales won't match those of the iPad 2 and it's hard to say how many buyers will be drawn to this first incarnation of the device, Epps said. In a survey of people considering a tablet purchase conducted by Forrester Research in May and June, 7 percent were considering a TouchPad, compared to more than 50 percent for the iPad 2. In some respects, such as weight, the TouchPad is more comparable to the original iPad than the iPad 2, which won't help with adoption, Epps said. But this first release gives HP an opportunity to gauge market response and hone its device.

Several TouchPad buyers interviewed Friday were either gadget enthusiasts or developers, and already owned iPad or Android devices. Bryan Liles, a developer based in Baltimore, said he is not a fan of HP products in general but bought a TouchPad because he has always been interested in webOS. "Every new tablet that's released is automatically compared to the iPad," Liles said. "There can't be a better iPad. 

Other buyers were happy owners of Palm devices such as the Pre and Pixi smartphones, and see the TouchPad as a companion device. "Happy to say we are Android free. The combination of the webOS on a bigger screen and powerful hardware makes it an attractive device, he said. "I know they are planning to put webOS on more devices, like printers. Web browsing was also a concern for New York resident Jerry Kallarakkal, who did not buy a TouchPad Friday. 

The TouchPad is a 9.7in touch-screen tablet featuring webOS, the streamlined mobile operating system HP acquired when it purchased smartphone pioneer Palm. While not as widespread as Google's Android, HP is betting heavily on its success - so much so, in fact, that it is in talks to license the software to other manufacturers.

Behind its 1024x768 multi-touch display, the TouchPad includes a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, which stands up well against the Samsung-built A5 processor in Apple's iPad 2. In its advertising, HP has made much of the fact that the TouchPad can run Adobe's Flash Player - unlike the iPad - and access interactive content on the Internet that is shut out from other tablet models.

While early reviews have suggested that the tablet struggles with poor battery life, its main barrier to success could be the relatively poor developer ecosystem for webOS: despite some good first-party applications, very few developers are producing webOS software, instead choosing to concentrate on Google's Android and Apple's iOS in order to target the biggest possible user bases.
By. Android Phone Tips

Tuesday, July 5, 2011 | 0 comments | Labels: ,

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