About two weeks ago, HP gave up on the tablet game, discontinued development of their portable platform, webOS, and cleared their inventory with a drastic fire sale. Ironically, this made them the #2 name in tablet computing overnight, which was something they were aiming for since they launched the TouchPad just over a month ago.

I ordered two 32GB units from OfficeDepot.com, one for my wife and I, during the frenzied rush to snatch the remaining stock up.  The day they arrived, we played with them pretty much all day.  The same day, Best Buy retail stores were unloading their stock of TouchPad accessories at half off.  On top of that, they gave you an additional 15% occur you bought three or more accessories.  We now have two completely decked out 32GB units, for less than the price of a single 16GB unit by itself.

So, how is it?  Well, it’s no iPad, but that’s a given.  The TouchPad struggles to keep up with itself, choking and jerking animations even when nothing is going on (yes, even after disabling logging and overclocking to 1.5Ghz).  The app situation is a bit dire, but as someone who isn’t a NetFlix or Hulu Plus customer, and didn’t expect this to fulfill my gaming needs, what’s available today is “good enough”, and I’m overall satisfied with the purchase.

I’ve read people raving over the on-screen keyboard, but I’m having a bit of difficulty adjusting to it.  My spaces don’t always register, and the auto-correct never picks up the right words.  I’m having a hard time writing this paragraph in particular, and can’t seem to fight the urge to backspace and correct as I go, rather than just type, letting the tablet figure it out, and then proof-reading it before I finish.

The native WordPress app is brilliant, however.