Thought I would give you guys a report. I got 2 via eCost delivered yesterday. Sold one to a member here. Keeping the other for myself.
Wow, I've been really impressed by this thing. I've had multiple Palm products in the past (Personal, Prism, and Tungsten T3) and iPhones, etc. For the record, I've never had anything Android.
IMHO WebOS is a real gem; it's highly intuitive and very responsive. Using the cards/stacks method of window/app management is fun and easy. Way better than iOS. WebOS handles the swiping, stacking, etc. very naturally. I haven't had the slightest hiccup with that. However, there are some tweaks that everyone with one of these should do. Look here(
link).
The graphics and icons are very linuxy: smooth gradients and not a ton of cutesie, cartoon, candy-coated type feel (hello, Apple). Feels more grown-up than others.
The built-in apps are pretty good. The Facebook app (if you still/ever used Facebook) is really great. The other built-in apps like mail, calendar, etc. are pretty standard. The browser is fast and has enough functionality to not leave you wanting but not so much that it gets bogged down.
The single most useful accessory for this thing has to be the Touchstone dock. Maybe I’m the last one in the world to discover inductive charging, but after experiencing it I've gotta ask, "why doesn't every device have this?" And when you drop the Touchpad in the dock, it automagically goes into Exibition mode, displaying pictures, clocks, news, weather, etc. Will be awesome on my desk in the office or next to the bed. Oh, and did I mention that HP's folio case still works with the Touchstone dock? Yep, charges right through it.
The hardware seems somewhat generic. Yes, the screen is really nice; I watched some trailers, looked at some photos, and read some blogs and all of that is great on the screen. The camera's usable but only just barely. The casing feels kindof cheap to me and is a horrible fingerprint magnet. Black deep gloss plastic is sooooo "two-thousand and late". Matte, softtouch, or even a fake carbon texture would all be better. Everything else about the hardware is OK. The CPU isn't lightning-quick but you can overclock it with a custom kernel if you like. The speakers sound much better than my iPhone 4, my wife's iPad, or my Acer 1810T laptop. This will be our new in-bed-movie-watching device just because of the sound.
Let me address the lack of apps...it's not that bad. Yes, there's not a Logos (Bible study software) for it like there is for iOS and Android, but you know what? It doesn't matter. I just use the web app and it actually works on WebOS because it's Flash enabled. Can't do THAT on iOS. So Google Plus, Amazon VOD, Pandora, etc. work great in the browser just like on your laptop. I couldn't get Netflix to work, but I'm cancelling my subscription in a few days anyway. :-p
So, there's my take. Feel free to ask questions if you like.
