Christmas is long gone and most people have nothing much to show for it except pictures to stir up endless memories. I was one of them up to late December and then I bought an HP Touchpad during a ridiculous fire sale. Yes, I sacrificed the ham for a tablet during the festive season, so it is with great pride that I give you this year's first review on the HP Touchpad.

It's better than you think!

I had known all the bad publicity and negative reviews circulating the world over about this tablet, so I was a bit hesitant to purchase it. I was terrified, to say the least. If it hadn't been for the irresistible price tag, this beauty may have slid through my fingers. The dreaded Touchpad isn't as dreadful once you get to know it the way only an owner can, and its internal components are first-rate, even when compared to market leaders.

HP Touchpad

• LED-backlit LCD, touch screen capacity, 16M colours
• 9.7-inch display 768 x 1024 pixels (~132 ppi pixel density)
• 1.3MP camera 1280 x 1024 pixels
• HP webOS 3.0 Operating System
• Dual-Core 1.2GHz Scorpion CPU
• Accelerometer and Gyro Sensors
• WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, EDR

Apple iPad 2

• LED-backlit IPS TFT, touch screen capacity, 16M colours
• 9.7-inch display 768 x 1024 pixels (~132 ppi pixel density)
• 0.7MP camera 960 x 720 pixels
• iOS 4 Operating System
• Dual-core 1GHz Cortex-A9 CPU
• Accelerometer and Gyro Sensors
• WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, EDR

The Touchpad seems to have better specifications than the iPad 2 in some categories. This goes to show that you shouldn't believe the hype.

The bugs!

Bugs? Yup! The HP Touchpad is not perfect, but I am pleased with the bugs I have now because, prior to this, they were monsters. After taking the product from the box and the initial start-up, a technical difficulty was staring me in the face. It was immediately rectified once I found my old pal, 'System Update'. After the system update, the Touchpad moved from being an OK device to an awesome one.

WebOS is now open source!

It isn't a secret folks; the Touchpad has been discontinued/killed/murdered/ assassinated before it could shine and show the world what it was made of. Then HP dropped the bombshell and turned WebOS into an open-source platform for anyone to use freely without restrictions. This minor detail may make the average consumer shy away from a device, but to tech-savvy persons like myself that means HACKS! Home-brewed applications! HACKS! Programmers gone wild! More HACKS! Just think of the possibilities that can be unlocked in such a powerful device. It hasn't been a year yet and hackers have already done the following:

• Over clocked the Touchpad CPU to 1.5GHz and 1.9GHz
• Dual Boot WebOS and Android OS on the Touchpad
• Got the Android OS working entirely on the Touchpad
• Hacks to speed up and lessen the bugs on the WebOS on the Touchpad

and the list goes on and on ...

Final thoughts

It's a pity that HP gave up on the Touchpad so soon, but the fact that they made WebOS an open source is like a gift from the heavens. Owning an HP Touchpad now is like sitting on a gold mine that is waiting to be excavated. WebOS is a remarkable operating system once you understand it. The miraculous price tag was around $25,000 but that is long gone. Now the HP Touchpad retails for about $40,000, which is still good considering what you're getting.

The product mentioned in this article was provided courtesy of Royale Computers and Accessories telephone#: 906-1067, 906-1068, and 754-5048.