HP’s long-discontinued webOS tablet continues to find new life as an Android device. The company launched the HP TouchPad in 2011 and discontinued the tablet just two months later due to disappointing sales.

But when the company slashed prices and sold off its remaining tablets for as little as $99, HP managed to sell millions of TouchPads (most likely at a loss).

That means there are a lot of TouchPad owners out there… and for the last few years many of those people have been keeping their tablets up to date by installing Android on them. Now you can even run Android 5.0 Lollipop on an HP TouchPad.

tp5_03

Developer flintman has posted an early preview of Evervolv 5.0 for the HP TouchPad at the xda-developers forum.

Evervolv is a custom version of Android, and the latest build is based on Android 5.0. It’s likely that we’ll see other custom ROMs based on Android 5.0 for the TouchPad soon, but flintman’s version is the first that shows the HP TouchPad can run Google’s latest software.

The first version of flintman’s port of Evervolv was released on November 22nd and while it’s still pretty buggy, it does bring the new Android 5.0 security features, user interface, and other changes to the TouchPad.

Bluetooth works (it didn’t at first), but the camera does not and I haven’t been able to get the YouTube app to work. The system is also extraordinarily sluggish after you first boot, but it speeds up a bit over time.

At this point if you want to run a stable version of Android on the HP TouchPad you’re probably better off sticking with a build of Android 4.4 or earlier. But if you want to help kick the tires of the most recent build in hopes of making it better, check out the thread at the xda-developers forum, or keep an eye out for other Android 5.0-based custom ROMs that might arrive in the forums.

Note that if you do install Evervolv, you’ll want to use a supported recovery, such as Flintman’s build of TWRP and the latest Google Apps package for Android 5.0, which you can download from BasketBuild.

Note: Still running webOS (or an earlier version of Android) on your TouchPad? Check out our guide for using TouchPad Toolbox to turn the tablet into a modern Android device. 

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18 replies on “HP TouchPad gets Android 5.0 Lollipop (unofficially)”

  1. This is NOT an official but an PREVIEW version of 5.0

    They are NOT the same thing

  2. This tablet is awesome. I’ve had my 32Gb since the fire sale of 2011 and my 64Gb early 2012. I have run all versions of android since CM7, Ubuntu 11.10, 12.04, 13.10, Arch, Ubuntu Touch, WebOS and LuneOS. This tablet just doesn’t stop thanks to it’s user community. It may not be the most powerful tablet around, but it has been my daily driver since 2011. How many other tablets are that versatile?

    1. Me too, I have 2 of these and my kids beat this to death everyday, my wife once slammed both these on the floor… they all survived (no dings! ) and still going strong.

  3. Pretty cool stuff there.
    Have to admire the dedication these folks show.

  4. To see that WebOS card-style “recent apps” view on a Touchpad only because it’s in a new Android version … It’s almost too much to bear.. sniff…

    1. It’s acceptable in my book. Matias Duarte was the User Experience designer behind WebOS, and he’s been the UX designer for Android since he left Palm/HP in 2010. Android has been moving towards this for some time, so it’s nice to see his vision finally delivered on with a more solid backing.

      Still, I do miss the elegance (and the rough around the edges nature) of WebOS. The Pre3 I had was a seriously lovely little phone. It was sad to sell it, but I knew it was time to move on… My parents *just* started switching off of their Palm Pixis!

    1. Mine has been running ICS for a long time too still. Thinking about totally wiping webOS off it and upgrading though. They’ll polish Lollipop pretty quickly I think. The guru whiz kids have had a lot of practice and experience by now so to see this up so quickly doesn’t surprise me. Pretty cool that the TouchPad is the tablet that just doesn’t die…best $150 I ever spent.

    1. Storage limitations aside there are some processor features you can’t really get around like MMUs, but uLinux maybe?

    2. There is LUnix or GeckOS, unix like operating systems for the Commodore 64.

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