

Android on the HP Touchpad (Alpha Release) - hebejebelus
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/33227-alpha-cyanogenmod-7-for-the-hp-touchpad-v710-alpha-13-oct-2011/

======
jackson71
Installed it on my 32GB Touchpad last night; here are my observations so far
(YMMV).

Pros:

\+ It's an alpha, but impressively stable. No more than a couple force quits
all night. No random reboots.

\+ It feels a world faster than webOS already.

\+ Battery life isn't optimized, but wasn't horrible, either.

\+ Touchstone worked for me; even had a chime when docked.

\+ Many apps I restored to the device worked wonderfully.

\+ Did I say apps? I'll say it again: Apps.

Cons:

\+ Obviously, not all apps work perfectly.

\+ Wi-Fi was flaky on 802.11n (5Ghz). Turning on and off a few times fixed it.

\+ Market reported being offline when everything else on the unit was
connecting fine. See above Wi-Fi fix.

\+ Market is filtering many apps, but here's a fix:
[http://forums.precentral.net/other-tablets/303534-how-
guide-...](http://forums.precentral.net/other-tablets/303534-how-guide-get-
cyanogenmod-7-1-0-alpha-1-a.html#post3206800)

\+ Unexplained slowdowns from time to time. It's Alpha. It happens.

\+ Will wipe your /media/internal directory for repartitioning. Back it up
first.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the speed and result of the CM7 Team's
effort although I find myself missing the multitasking/switching component of
webOS (but not the slowness).

~~~
angryasian
webos user here. App switching, do you mean the card system ? I think its
terrible in comparison to holding down the home button on any android. Hold
down the home button and it shows you all the recent apps.

~~~
jackson71
There's pros and cons to both systems; it's merely a preference of mine after
having a mixture of both Android and webOS devices for a couple of years now.

~~~
haridsv
A lot of people don't know that you can move the cards around so that you can
arrange two cards to be right next to each other, if you could speed up your
workflow that way. I also don't like how you have to keep the home button
pressed pon android, may be it is just my phone, but I would rather have an
instant response to pressing home button rather than a timed one.

------
blinkingled
Using it for a day now - it is surprisingly smooth for an Alpha. Some rough
cuts here and there but nothing bad at all.

The boot time is fast. Apps launch fast. GPU seems to be doing its job - no
sluggishness. Google Apps install and work fine. Wifi hasn't dropped.
Browser/Flash works as well as it does on any other Android phone.

Haven't tested battery life yet but for the few times I tested disconnected
from power source for a hour or two it did not seem to drain abnormally.

If you install moboot - you can conveniently choose between
recovery/webOS/CM7.

BUT the webOS UI has different richness and cohesiveness to it - it goes
closer to Apple experience than Android. But on the other hand it is dog slow
in loading apps.

Once ICS based CM port comes out - the $99 TouchPad will be the best thing I
ever bought! Till then it's a great hacking machine.

~~~
angryasian
does sleep work on it ?

~~~
joenathan
Yes, but not perfectly, it has the occasional sleep of death, the power
management isn't all there, and wifi my not come back on without turning the
wifi off and then back on.

~~~
recoiledsnake
For the wifi, turn off wifi sleep in the advanced wifi settings.

------
joenathan
I'm running this on my TouchPad, it's a little rough around the edges but
miles above WebOS in speed and usability.

Screenshot of my home screen <http://i.minus.com/ix1hOWz4bdIsi.png>

~~~
tdoggette
Speed, maybe, but whenever I use my iPhone or Droid Incredible for web
browsing and multitasking, I miss the WebOS app switching interface something
terrible. It's the best handling of multitasking on a mobile device, period.

~~~
tiles
I can deal with having a less consistent, less beautiful interface than WebOS
had, but I honestly find it very difficult to go back to Android/iOS's form of
multitasking. Handling tabs in browsers makes no sense, I can't switch between
applications quickly enough, and worse yet if I'm trying to copy information
from one application to another (and copy/paste doesn't cut it).

I remember seeing a jailbroken iOS version with WebOS-style multitasking, that
I'm going to have to look into once my Pre bites the dust.

~~~
minalecs
| Handling tabs in browsers makes no sense

Opening new links in a new card is by far one of the worst user experiences I
have ever seen. Also a pressing another button to switch to different windows
( default android and mobile safari) is not any better.

As someone else said, maybe the shortcut isn't obvious, but holding down the
home button allows you to see a recent apps and switches apps (Android) must
faster than scrolling through cards.

How is copy and paste different in WebOS (haven't found a use for it yet)

~~~
tiles
This is where we differ then :) For me, it's akin to how each application on
PCs implement tabs, but in a slightly different way (Chrome v. Firefox v.
Nautilus). Because webOS has a consistent interface for handling multiple
pages (and WebOS 2+ has card grouping), it makes for less mental effort to
expect that is going to happen.

Holding down the home button is as fast as scrolling through cards in my
experience. You're right, that is a comparable interface for going back and
forth between applications. I like how in webOS there is an infinitely-
scrollable list of tabs, whereas in Android OS/iOS it is "most recently
opened" applications, the state of each application is hard to tell just from
their icons, etc. webOS better mimicks the PC model.

And I was unclear about copy/paste on webOS; I meant situations where you
can't just copy and paste (like consulting a map for nearby cities or roads,
and you have to perform manual entry). But I'm skilled in the webOS switch,
others in Android/iOS. YMMV.

------
codeslush
This was actually relatively painless! Got it installed in a matter of a few
minutes, with the multi-boot option.

I downloaded a few apps and was happy to see Netflix work! Angry Birds too.

Facebook doesn't even show up from the market - not sure if other people are
experiencing this or not. I assume the facebook app will not work on it, but
strange that it doesn't even show up from market searches.

Would like to get swype on here somehow.

No problems with my wifi, at least not yet.

Very impressed!

EDIT: I see from a link lower down there is an update for the market apps not
all showing. I'll install that later!

------
xarien
Just a note, if you have the sync turned on and own an android phone, it'll
automatically grab the apps. This can be viewed as a pro or a con depending on
the apps.

There's also an issue with the usb mounting when copying over large chunks of
data. It'll randomly disconnect from time to time.

