There were a lot of cruddy tablets at CES 2011 but the Hanvon HPAD was not one of them. The versions they had for testing were still beta builds, so we can expect improved performance once the device launches in July. But out of the gate, I really liked how Hanvon optimized Android for their tablet, especially with the content sliders that allowed you to quickly flick through your music, books, magazines, videos and other media.
One app I found interesting on the HPAD was their Biz Card Recognizer. You can take a picture of a business card with the tablet and using a very Google Gogglesy method, it would identify the contact info and auto-enter it into your contacts. The demo they showed me worked, and this is neat in theory, but with all the weird and outrageous business cards out there with crazy designs and setups, I wonder what percentage of business cards would actually get through the system cleanly.
The two versions the company was showing off were the HPAD A112 and the HPAD A116. The A116 is the more high powered of the two, including Android 2.3, 1GHz processor, 7-inch screen, 5MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack and a bunch of other goodies.
Whereas the custom UI on many Android devices is off-putting, the concept of Hanvon’s seems intriguing. How well it will work in practice is the question, when you try to dump all your media onto the device or download from whatever source you choose. Either way, when the product launches this summer we’ll have our eye on it.