Difference Between HP TouchPad and Blackberry PlayBook

HP TouchPad vs Blackberry PlayBook – Full Specs Compared

HP TouchPad and BlackBerry PlayBook are two tablet devices by HP and Research in Motion respectively. BlackBerry PlayBook was released to the consumer market in the first quarter of 2011, and HP TouchPad followed during the second quarter of 2011. Following is a review on similarities and differences on these two devices.

HP TouchPad

HP TouchPad is the tablet device by HP running webOS, initially released in July 2011. The TouchPad is a 9.7 inch tablet with 16GB and 32 GB storage. Hp TouchPad has a 1.2 GHz processor 1 GB memory. It is important to note that memory cannot be upgraded, or is not accessible to the customer. The tablet has a glossy black finish and it’s relatively heavier than other tablets of the same size or bigger. The tablet takes a concave shape enabling easy hold of HP TouchPad. HP TouchPad has a LED multi-touch display with 1024 x 768 resolution.

A neat range of accessories are available with HP TouchPad. A light weight HP TouchPad case is available, and it’s sold separately. The Case doubles as a protective cover, as well as a stand. The TouchPad can be paired with a wireless keyboard for users who are more at ease with a standard keyboard. HP TouchStone charging dock charges the HP TouchPad on contact. All these accessories are sold separately to HP TouchPad.

HP claims a battery life of 9 hours of continuous video play back, however most reviews claim an average battery life of 8.5 hours. But this depends on the simultaneous Wi-Fi and Bluetooth use as well.

HP TouchPad runs HP webOS 3.0, that has tried to keep all neat features of earlier versions such as multitasking intact. A physical Home screen button is available for users to navigate to Home screen. Users may also swipe the bottom of the screen to navigate to the home screen. Each application the user opens will be available in a card which is similar to a small pop up screen. Switching between applications is very user friendly due to this “cards” and the operating system is also very responsive.

Searching in webOS is available by “Just Type”. Notifications appear in the top status bar being less intrusive to user. “HP synergy “is the email application available in HP TouchPad, and it allows integrating multiple accounts to one inbox. HP Synergy works with POP3/SMTP, Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange and MobileMe. The calendar available in HP TouchPad allows seamless integration with social networking sites such as Facebook. The calendar also enables integration of multiple calendars. HP TouchPad also has a native Facebook application, which is well optimized for a tablet. The Facebook live feed is available in a list, as well as in an asymmetric grid. HP TouchPad comes with QuickOffice pre installed. QuickOffice installed in HP TouchPad allows viewing word documents, slides and spreadsheets.

HP TouchPad has a front facing 1.3 mega pixel camera and a rear facing camera is not available with the device. The front facing camera can be used with only for video chat and pictures cannot be captured.

HP TouchPad can be synced with Pre 3 (Smart phone with webOS) over Bluetooth. Pre 3 and HP TouchPad can successfully share contacts and messages. However the most unique feature would be “Touch to share”. A user can open a web page on the phone tap the phone against the HP TouchPad and the tablet will open the web page immediately.

Applications for TouchPad can be downloaded from App catalog but not many applications supporting HP TouchPad is available at the moment.

Blackberry PlayBook

Blackberry PlayBook is a tablet by Research in Motion; the famous Blackberry company. The device was released to the consumer market during the first quarter of 2011. In contrary to the flood of Android tablets in the market, Blackberry PlayBook offers a different flavor. The operating system in PlayBook is QNX. QNX is an embedded system based operating system used even in fighter jets. Blackberry PlayBook is a 7 inch tablet, which is reportedly lighter than iPad 2. With a 3 mega pixel front facing camera and a 5 mega pixel rear facing camera Blackberry PlayBook is satisfactory for taking photographs, as well as video conferencing. The camera application allows switching between video mode and picture mode. The Blackberry PlayBook has a multi touch screen with 1024 x 600 resolution.

Blackberry PlayBook has a dual core 1 GHz processor with 1 GB memory and internal storage is available in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Research In Motion has introduced an array of accessories for the tablet as well. A number of cases are available for RIM to protect Blackberry PlayBook in style. A convertible case is also available, which can be doubled as a stand as well. BlackBerry rapid charging Pod, Blackberry rapid Travel charger, and Blackberry Premium charger are the other set of accessories available, and sold separately for BlackBerry PlayBook.

Switching between applications is quite easy in BlackBerry PlayBook. This is done by simply swiping inwards from left or right side of the screen. A tap maximizes the application and throwing it up will cause the application to shut down. The responsiveness of the operating system is also much commended. Blackberry QNX facilitates a multi-touch screen which recognizes many interesting gestures any tablet user will love. The operating system supports gestures such as swipe, pinch, drag and many variants of them. If a user swipe from the bottom of the screen to the middle it will be possible to see the home screen. If a user swipe left or right while viewing an application it’s possible to switch between applications. A virtual keyboard is available for text input, however finding special characters and punctuation needs some efforts. Precision is also another factor where the keyboard can improve.

BlackBerry PlayBook comes with many necessary applications pre-installed. A customized Adobe PDF reader is available, which reportedly has quality performance. Therefore, it is no surprise that PlayBook comes with a complete suite capable of handling documents, spreadsheets and slide presentations. Using Word to Go and Sheet To Go applications users can create word documents and spread sheets. However, slide presentation will not be possible to create while excellent view functionality is provided.

“Blackberry Bridge” allows the Tablet to be connected with blackberry phone with Blackberry OS 5 or above. However, the performance of this application is below expectations. The calendar application will unlock only if it’s used with a Blackberry smart phone.

Users can download more applications from “App World”, where applications for BlackBerry PlayBook are available. However, comparing with its competitors, App World needs to come up with more applications for the platform.

The email client available with BlackBerry PlayBook is called “Messages”, which is quite misleading to SMS messaging. Basic functionality such as searching email, selecting multiple messages and message tagging is available in the installed client.

The browser of BlackBerry PlayBook is much raved for its performance. The pages reportedly load fast and users are able to navigate even before the entire page is loaded which is really a neat functionality. The browser boasts Flash Player 10.1 support, and heavy flash sites are loaded with smoothness. Zooming is also reportedly very smooth.

The native music application available with BlackBerry PlayBook categorizes music by song, artist, album and genre. It is a generic music application which allows minimizing if the user needs to access another application. The video application allows users to access all their downloaded and recorded videos in one place. An option to upload videos from the device is not available. Quality of recorded video is acceptable.

In Conclusion, BlackBerry PlayBook will be a good tablet device for the enterprise market. Though, names with the “Play” moniker, BlackBerry PlayBook is perhaps more suitable for more business minded users.

What’s the difference between HP TouchPad and Blackberry PlayBook?

HP TouchPad and BlackBerry PlayBook are two tablet devices by HP and Research in Motion respectively. HP TouchPad runs webOS 3.0, which is a tablet friendly version of the webOS available in HP phones. BlackBerry PlayBook includes a much speculated QNX operating system. While webOS is a Linux based system, QNX is based on the Neutrino real time operating system. HP TouchPad is a 9.7 inch tablet, while BlackBerry PlayBook is a 7 inch tablet. Both devices are raved for the responsiveness of the operating system and multitasking ability. Applications for HP TouchPad can be downloaded from Palm App Catalog, and applications for BlackBerry PlayBook can be downloaded from Blackberry App World. A common issue with both devices is the low number of applications supporting the devices. Both manufacturers are aiming to allow the usage of their respective tablets paired with phones manufactured by them. The ability to pair HP TouchPad with Pre3, and the ability to pair BlackBerry PlayBook with a Blackberry phone is quite useful in this aspect. Both tablets have similar hardware specifications with nearly 1 GB memory, 1 GHz dual core processing power and 16 GB to 64 GB storage. However, TouchPad is not available with 64 GB memory. While most tablets including BlackBerry PlayBook has both front facing and rear facing cameras, HP TouchPad only has a front facing camera integrated with Skype. Both tablets are well integrated with social networking, and include multi touch screens.