Meanwhile, although I could access my Gmail account via the Web, and I could view a file within the Web browser, I couldn't select a file for download. Ditto for files I encountered while Web surfing. Not that I could have done much with my documents anyway--right now, the included version of Quickoffice can only read files, not edit them. HP does say that Quickoffice with full editing capabilities will be coming later this summer, but that means you'll need to wait before you can try to use the TouchPad as a productivity tool.

Native TouchPad apps look great, but if you stumble upon apps in the App Catalog that were designed for WebOS phones, the results are poor. Of the 22 random free apps I chose to download--all of which said they supported the TouchPad--one crashed and closed on its own, three failed to download entirely, two more didn't work as advertised, and six displayed in a small, phone-size window (it even looks like a Palm phone) inside the TouchPad. Of the apps that took advantage of the TouchPad's display size and resolution, several specified "tablet" in the title. Clearly, HP faces a similar app challenge as Google does with its fragmented Android platform--and it's not faring much better at presenting tablet-optimized apps in its store.