Quick Hands-On With AT&T's 4G TouchPad

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
4gtouchpad

We may have already reviewed the TouchPad’s most elementary form, but last week we saw a leaked roadmap that has the 4G version coming out in August. AT&T had an event today where we got a quick hands-on, but other than a speed test and a little extra info, there’s not much to say.

Obviously an inside event (though relatively high up), packed with spectrum-hogging bloggers, isn’t the best place to test this sort of thing out, but it’s not like AT&T was going to let us go for a walk with their precious. We saw speeds of just 3 Mb/s down and 0.84 Mb/s up. I’d take those numbers with a grain of salt, and of course they’ll be different where you are (if 4G is even offered).

Let’s say you do have a sweet 30-meg connection, though. You’re going to burn through your data allowance pretty quickly. So the 4G TouchPad will come with an app to help monitor your data consumption and control wireless connectivity. Thoughtful! I would have guessed they’d let people go over by a few thousand dollars’ worth and then give out the app.