HP TouchPad gets unofficial Marshmallow update

While retail availability of the HP TouchPad was extremely short, this tablet received a lot of unofficial updates in the last four years, and it looks like it still has a future. HP released this 9.7-inch slate back in July 2011 and discontinued less than two months later, in mid-August. Next to the official webOS firmware releases, this slate also received unofficial Ubuntu and Android updates.

The first Android 2.3 builds for the HP TouchPad were launched back in 2011 and the latest pieces of code released for it were based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. Now, the time has come for Android 6.0 Marshmallow. XDA Developers forum user flintman unveiled the early alpha Marshmallow update for TouchPad on November 1st. According to his initial report, the firmware has problems with the camera and Bluetooth connectivity, using the microphone kills audio, rotation sometimes hands, while the microSD is not mounting.

The above might be considered as too much for a usable system, but this is nothing out of ordinary for such an early build. Those who do not want to take Marshmallow for a spin on their TouchPad to help discover and fix bugs should probably stick to Lollipop for the time being.