Initial iPad impressions from a tm2 owner.

[heatlesssun]

The iPad will possibly be the best selling failure of all time.

That's actually a very profound statement. I think the failure really is in its TRUE utility. Great device, portable, great battery life and yet it just feels like is really all about selling you stuff.

[sjones411]

I've been having a difficult time coming up with a response to the general, "TM2 beats the pants off the iPad" sentiments in this thread. I think the difficulty I'm having is trying to identify what people are actually comparing the two devices by.

As far as straight media consumption goes, the iPad beats the pants off the TM2. You tap the Media Player, you tap the song you want, and you're done. No loading screens, no random software updates, no crappy HP software getting in your way. The iPad gets out of the way and acts more like an appliance than a computer. Coupled with it's 10 hour battery life, if your only goal is to watch movies, listen to music, and read books, the iPad is the better device.

However, no one just reads books, listens to music, and watches movies. This is where the TM2 shines. It can do everything. It's got Flash support, you can multi-task, play the latest games, and use real software like Word and Photoshop. In terms of raw functionality, the TM2 bests the iPad in everything except for battery life.

This, for all intensive purposes though, is like trying to compare an iPod Touch to a desktop computer. It's obvious one is much more powerful and versatile than the other.

So I think where the real debate lies, is which machine is a better "Tablet". I would have to say, despite all the the TM2 can do, the iPad makes a better tablet. It's designed from the ground up to be a touch-oriented OS, doing things in a simplified, mobile minded way. Any computer running Windows 7 will never able able to come close to the consistent UI offered by the iPad. When it comes to offering Tablet experiences on Windows, right now all we have is Microsoft OneNote 2010 and HP's terrible Touchsmart software. Sure, tapping UI elements with a pen is a nice experience, and I find myself poking my screen on my other computers in attempts to focus an IM window, but these uses are still just tacked onto a desktop operating system. Just because you fold the screen down on a laptop doesn't instantly mean it's going to be a better mobile experience.

So in closing, the iPad isn't a good machine in light of it's shortcomings... it's a good machine because of it's shortcomings. It's overpriced, it's functionality is limited, and it has to deal with arbitrarily issues like codec and Flash support, but it still is the better machine when it comes to exemplifying what a portable, "Tablet" experience should be.

Of course, not everyone needs that experience. I needed a laptop which I could do light gaming on, hand written note taking, and C++ coding, which is why I own a TM2, not an iPad. Before anyone accuses me of being an Apple fanboy by the way, I own a TM2 (Windows 7 and Ubuntu in a VM), and a Windows based HTPC, as well as an iMac. I hope I got my point across without too much rambling...

[Synergi]

I agree that touch on a iphone/ipad is much better. The TM2 doesn't compare to the smoothness that the iPad has. Hopefully HP or Microsoft will make it a better experience in future updates.

The iPad with a iPS screen I could lay flat and take hand written notes on appeals not only to me, but I'm sure to college students out there also. I don't understand why you would leave the pen off of a slate.

To whom that said this will be the best selling failure. With all the underhanded agency price models on books, and the publishers trying to destroy Amazon's business, I'll be interested to see if the iPad sells as many books as Amazon does.

Maybe its just me but I don't think the market that will be buying this are book readers.

And Amazon! I love my Kindle but they have fallen asleep at the wheel. They should have announced their next gen Kindle by now. Instead, everyone and their mother has came out with better readers with better functions. They had the lead, they should have been innovating before now instead of trying to play catch up.

And Amazon, if your listening, give it a pen so I can make notes in my book or in a journal.

Oh and Heatlessun, if you remove Apple's name from the iPad and replace it with Microsoft, no one would be looking at it any differently then any other new device.

[heatlesssun]

As far as straight media consumption goes, the iPad beats the pants off the TM2. You tap the Media Player, you tap the song you want, and you're done. No loading screens, no random software updates, no crappy HP software getting in your way. The iPad gets out of the way and acts more like an appliance than a computer. Coupled with it's 10 hour battery life, if your only goal is to watch movies, listen to music, and read books, the iPad is the better device.

I'm not saying that the tm2 beats the pants off the tm2, what I'm saying is that people think the iPad does stuff that isn't already done and does stuff it doesn't even do. Take for instant your statement. Have you ever heard of Zune? There simply is a better music consumption system out right now and it runs great on the tm2. It does however not work well with a touchscreen great granted, but with a Zune pass there's nothing on the iPad that beats it in terms of getting all the music most could ask for. Then you have Netflicks in Media Center. Hulu. You can play Blu Rays. To say that the tm2 can consume media like a drunk can throw down shots at free open bar. And lets not forget perhaps the most popular way in the world to consume media, torrents. Never on an iPad.

Is the iPad slcker and prettier sure. But are we forgetting that people have been consuming all this stuff for YEARS on Windows. And something like Zune is just as slick as anything on the iPad in terms of getting media.

The iPad needs updating as well. And when setup for automatic updates, most people don't even see updates in Windows 7. You're making the mistake that flaws in Windows don't get fixed and that things don't evolve for the better. They do on ALL platforms really.

Pages and Numbers have loading screens BTW IIRC from looking at the iPad today. I know NFS Shift did. You're acting like every program is loaded into memory on an iPad.

[heatlesssun]

I agree that touch on a iphone/ipad is much better. The TM2 doesn't compare to the smoothness that the iPad has.

True but this is an app issue. Microsoft Surface Globe is silky smooth with multi-touch. I've actually been playing around with .NET multi-touch programing in Windows 7 and you'd been surprised by just how smooth apps written in even C# can be with multi-touch.

You're right but the OS handles it, its not really in HP or Microsoft's hand alone but 3rd party developers. I'm hoping that a lot of iPad apps will make there way over to Windows 7 desktop tablets as it would seem to make sense for developers to make more money. Windows 7 multi-touch tablets are probably as a group are going be a significant part of the tablet market, second only the iPad and the iPad won't have a huge advantage in market share I'm thinking. There are a LOT of OEMS selling TPCs, the numbers might be small compared to the PC market but compared to the tablet market this percentage has be be pretty significant.

[NamelessPlayer]

If you want to talk about media playback and how the iPad stacks up against a typical Tablet PC:

I don't care about iTunes sync or flashiness or whatnot.

I DO care that it plays EVERY multimedia format WITHOUT CONVERSION, and in the case of Matroska (.MKV) packages or similar formats, let me switch between the audio and subtitle streams. Doesn't matter how obscure it is, but I better be able to listen/watch without conversion first!

I'm highly doubtful that anything less than a full-blown desktop/laptop/tablet OS will have the media players capable of pulling that off. (Windows Mobile comes pretty close with TCPMP, though.)

Anyway, what really irritates me about the iPad is that it's so close, yet so far. The screen, the battery life, the weight-it's almost just right, only they left out the all-important Wacom pen and thus left no opportunity for developers to leverage it.

[Synergi]

@ Heatlessun You're right, Surface is very smooth. Flicking through webpages isn't as smooth as the iPhone/iPad. I still like the TM2. It's turned into a all around work horse for me.

The Entourage eDge does peak my interest with its e-ink screen on one side and lcd on the other for the same price as the iPad. We'll see, I take a lot of notes. I especially like notes by hand because my brain seems to retain more. I'd love a e-ink journal that can sync with one note. But I am a head of my time as far as what is out there.

@NamelessPlayer
I agree. It's so limited. Like I said, if Microsoft stuck its name on the iPad, no one would pay it any attention because it is so limited. If it was a lower price point then a netbook then I think it would have legs. That said, a touch screen netbook capable of running a full OS can do more. I wanted the iPad and I could have over looked its limitations for the note-taking abilities if it had any.

[heatlesssun]

@ Heatlessun You're right, Surface is very smooth. Flicking through webpages isn't as smooth as the iPhone/iPad. I still like the TM2. It's turned into a all around work horse for me.

The Entourage eDge does peak my interest with its e-ink screen on one side and lcd on the other for the same price as the iPad. We'll see, I take a lot of notes. I especially like notes by hand because my brain seems to retain more. I'd love a e-ink journal that can sync with one note. But I am a head of my time as far as what is out there.

I'm hoping in time that a good number of iPad apps make it over to Windows tablets as porting at least some of these apps should be fairly easy and profitable as TPC owners would have no problem snapping up cool $10 apps. Of course piracy I'm sure is a concern but I think most TPC owners wouldn't have a problem plunking down $10 for these things, to know I wouldn't.

That said a good deal of these apps are on Windows, just not touch enabled and hopefully devs will go and retrofit some apps as well with Windows touch support.

BTW, I think touch support in IE easily rivals Safari on the iPad. Sure its smoother on the iPad over but IE is just adjusting the zoom level, its not really trying to be smooth.

Most of the time if in need to zoom the two finger tap zoom is faster than pinching anyway.

[heatlesssun]

I DO care that it plays EVERY multimedia format WITHOUT CONVERSION, and in the case of Matroska (.MKV) packages or similar formats, let me switch between the audio and subtitle streams. Doesn't matter how obscure it is, but I better be able to listen/watch without .

Exactly! This whole mantra of the iPad being the ultimate media consumption device just makes no sense.

What the heck have I been consuming all these years then?

[Synergi]

I've actually been trying to talk myself into buying it and not buying it. The biggest draw has been the data plan. I've wanted a moble data plan but I refuse to pay 60 dollars for something I won't use out THAT much.

So I had to figure what it is I would use it for. I can't take notes, that's out. I surf but it doesn't support flash and then I realized next to surfing is Aim. None of the Aim apps does chat rooms, so yet another limitation if I can't go into a simple chat room.

Off topic, sort of. I still say Amazon has fallen asleep at the wheel. They need to come up with someone innovative soon, and hopefully done right.