HP DreamScreen: Why Would Anyone Compare This To A Tablet?

Before the official announcement last week about HP’s new DreamScreen I had a chance to play around with the device for a little while. I was initially impressed — the screen has a decent interface for a non-touch device, plays music and video as well as picture slideshows, includes apps for SnapFish, Pandora and Facebook, and has the ability to acquire more, should developers approach HP. But never once did I feel that the DreamScreen was akin to any kind of tablet or tablet-like device. Thus I was surprised to see it described as such in other announcements across the web.

Perhaps the press releases and marketing materials led people to believe that the device did much more, or perhaps imaginations just ran wild, as Michael Arrington points out on TechCrunch today. Either way, the expectation that the DreamScreen is something more than a fairly advanced digital picture frame will probably make for a lot of disappointed people. Arrington is amongst them, calling the DreamScreen a “piece of crap.”

If you’re expecting a tablet and get the DreamScreen, then yes, I can understand that view. If you’re expecting a digital frame with benefits, then the device isn’t too bad. It’s not the best wireless frame I’ve ever seen by far. It also isn’t the worst.

Perhaps because he was expecting more, Arrington had some problems setting the DreamScreen up. He couldn’t get the demo video to stop playing or setup wireless in a timely manner or even get Pandora to work. That’s sad for him. However, I didn’t experience these problems.

Text input is crappy, yes, but is just the same on every other digital frame I’ve seen except one (which was worse). You’re not meant to use text input much. Once to input your Wi-Fi password and once for each app you need to enter login information for. Again, it’s not the best, but it doesn’t have a touchscreen or a keyboard, so what do you expect?

The demo video played once; I set the device up, I never saw it again. I listen to Pandora every morning as I get dressed. In fact, the DreamScreen is my current alarm clock. None of these things took as much hassle as Arrington leads you to believe.

The DreamScreen is not perfect and it is expensive, I will grant you. If you’re going to say it comes up short, then you need to compare it to other digital frames, not the tablet you’re currently developing.