So here it is, after months of detailscoming to light an inkdrop at a time, the HP eStation all-in-one printing solution. But we're not gonna dwell but on half of that: the 7-inch tablet skinned out by Yahoo and powered by Android 2.1. As we expected, though, the Google experience is decidedly less that you're accustomed to: search is Yahoo
only, and our attempt to find an alternate method was met with a
barebones settings menu. Additionally, there is no access to Android
Market, relegating your customization instead to HP's print-heavy app
store -- sorry, no games, as that's not what the company wants to focus
on here, according to the rep. That also means no Gmail, much to our
dismay. What Yahoo has provided is a suite of apps and widgets that
actually work well in their simplicity, from weather to stocks and
search.
We were reminded at numerous points that this is a prototype build, and
for good reason -- the responsiveness was questionably slow, especially
in the browser. That said, the Nook
store and e-reading app was as fluid as you'd ever need. WiFi is
equipped on both the tablet and the printer for cloud-based
connectivity on the go. Battery life is measured at four to six hours,
and Android 2.2 is expected by holiday still sans Market, but
beyond Flash (and at this point we question its performance on this
hardware), there's probably not a lot of value-add in the update.
Expect this AIO to be shipping the in the next few weeks.
