From the beginning, many observers of smartphones have considered webOS to be a promising operating system hamstrung by limited phone hardware. With the TouchPad, webOS gets a chance to shine--and a lot of it is up to the challenge.

In general, I like the webOS interface. It's similar to iOS and Android, yes, but it has some personality of its own. It's a tasteful design, and it's easy to use--my daughter figured it out in about a minute, if that.

I'm also intrigued by the fact that most webOS apps can be built using the standard web technologies of HTML and JavaScript, meaning that HP won't have to convince people to learn an entire new development approach in order to build webOS apps. At launch, HP expects there to be hundreds of TouchPad-optimized webOS apps available. Still, the HP App Catalog store isn't exactly full of apps (there will be more than 300 tablet-optimized apps available at launch, according to HP), and the size of Apple's App Store gives it a major advantage over tablet competitors such as the TouchPad.

One clever thing HP is trying: It's created a digital magazine, , and embedded it inside the HP App Catalog app. Think of an airline magazine entirely about webOS apps, and you've got the idea. It's an outside-the-box approach to encouraging app discovery, and while I have no idea if it'll work, it's certainly worth a try by an upstart platform looking for a way to show off its apps.

This is the first webOS device to rely on a software keyboard, and that on-screen keyboard is a good one. It's reminiscent of the iPad's, but with an extra row at top for numbers, so there's generally less need to press modifier keys to keep typing. The height of the keyboard is user-adjustable, so if you're particularly adept you can shrink down the keyboard and gain more screen real estate. I don't think HP's got its autocorrect system working quite right, because I had to make a lot of corrections as I typed, but in general, I was encouraged by the software keyboard. It would sure be nice to see a webOS smartphone without a slide-out hardware keyboard sometime soon. (There's also an optional Bluetooth keyboard for the TouchPad that is, like all of HP's accessories, an impressive, solid piece of hardware.)