HP TouchPad Fire Sale: $99

[1992casey]

HP TouchPad Fire Sales Begin, $99 for 16GB

 

HP is getting out of the tablet and smart phone business, there's a lack of apps, and nothing else uses the webOS operating system, but if you'd like something cheap for browsing the web and don't care that it'll be obsolete in a short period of time, this might be a viable purchase.

[lcbj68c]

This seems like a damn good deal. I am in the market for my first tablet. Considering it can wirelessly print to my HP printer, this may be the route to go. I can take it on the road and surf the net, I'm golden. The negative seems to be lack of new development of Apps?...who cares! I wonder what wireless network carriers I can shove into this thing?

[Invader3K]

Pretty good deal. I would probably jump on this if I didn't already have a Playbook.

[1992casey]

I think the TouchPad is WiFi only. I don't believe it's possible to access any mobile carriers.

 

The big negative I see is that if there are bugs in the software, I wouldn't expect updates. Another is that since this is a dead platform, I wouldn't expect wemasters to be putting much effort into making sure that their sites work on this thing.

 

The way I look at this, if you buy with low expectations, you might find value given the price. If you expect it to do what an iPad does, you'll be disappointed.

[theavrock]

Allegedly they are going to be continuing to develop WebOS but no more hardware (tablets, smartphones).

 

Basically HP is saying we bought Palm and all we are left with is this stinking OS.

WebOS is a pretty cool OS but I would have liked to see a lot of the features to have been expanded outside of just the Palm lineup.

Really looks like HP botched the launch of the Touchpad which could have been pretty great. Don't really get it.

[GAME05]

seems like no point since i have a laptop. however, the laptop has a slow 32-bit processor and is maxed out on RAM, so maybe this thing would do well just to free up some memory on the laptop and help it run a little faster.

[1992casey]

Allegedly they are going to be continuing to develop WebOS but no more hardware (tablets, smartphones).

 

The future of webOS is certainly up in the air. HP wants to

continue with it, but it doesn't look like there's a plan for it. As for the TouchPad, it sounds like it was doomed before it hit the shelves.

 

HP tested webOS on an iPad. It ran over twice as fast as the TouchPad.

HP’s WebOS team almost certainly had an idea that the company’s new tablet, the TouchPad, had very little chance of challenging Apple’s dominance in the tablet market, as the company’s webOS operating system was running “over twice as fast” on its rival’s iPad 2 tablet, a source close to the subject revealed to The Next Web.

 

With HP announcing it is to cease development of its webOS devices, we learned that before the HP’s TouchPad tablet and Pre smartphones were even released, everyone within the webOS team “wanted them gone”.

 

The hardware reportedly stopped the team from innovating beyond certain points because it was slow and imposed constraints, which was highlighted when webOS was loaded on to Apple’s iPad device and found to run the platform significantly faster than the device for which it was originally developed.

Except for printers, it looks like HP wants to get out of the hardware business entirely. Over the coming months, the company is going to be exploring it's options with personal computers. The division could be spun off into another company, sold to someone else, or discontinued entirely. It's no secret that the company isn't making money on PCs. I read somewhere recently that HP needs to sell seven computers to make the same profit that Apple does on one Mac.

 

Of course, if you buy an HP PC, you can expect a normal life expectancy no matter what the company chooses to do. Windows and Linux will continue to exist.

[GAME05]

the Interwebs are either sold out or normal price. guess Best Buy will be the first stop on my errand run today.

[Invader3K]

Read somewhere that your best bet might be to stop at Walmart or Best Buy and see if they have any local stock left.

 

What I understand of this tablet is that it's good for email and web browsing (assuming you have WiFi access), but that's about it. It's not designed to serve as a hardcore business tablet or anything like that.

[1992casey]

I think that you can bet that this tablet might not be good for much at all in a couple of years. But it might hold you over if you feel inclined to wait and see what Apple, Android, and Microsoft are doing at that point rather than making a significant investment now.

[rluzinski]

Everything is out of stock.

[The Mexican Weez]

I stopped off at Best Buy here in Chicago and the were recalled by HP. They took them all off the shelf. Makes me think they are not available by all other retailers as well

[Invader3K]

I stopped off at Best Buy here in Chicago and the were recalled by HP. They took them all off the shelf. Makes me think they are not available by all other retailers as well

Why would they bother recalling a discontinued product? Weird.

[The Mexican Weez]

I stopped off at Best Buy here in Chicago and the were recalled by HP. They took them all off the shelf. Makes me think they are not available by all other retailers as well

Why would they bother recalling a discontinued product? Weird.

my only guess is BB is getting more money from HP than the $99 /149 they would get from the consumer. Why that makes sense from HPs standpoint I have no clue

[GAME05]

out of stock at my Best Buy but Wal-Mart still had six of the 32Gig ones, so i got one.

 

i don't really need one, but i'll find a use for it for that kind of discount. was thinking of using it more like an external hard drive to store music and whatnot on instead of storing it on my laptop. hopefully that will slightly speed up my laptop.

[1992casey]

A couple of days ago, Best Buy begged HP to take the TouchPads back. Maybe that has something to do with the "recall."

 

It appears that there's a shopping cart glitch on HP's website. The advertising shows the correct $99 price, but the carts are computing the previous $399 price.

[GAME05]

stupid thing doesn't have a USB plugin. guess that makes it basically useless for music storage and updating my ipod.

[jjkoestler]

I called every store in the greater Madison area this morning and they were all sold out. There are a bunch of them on eBay right now for around $250.

[GAME05]

not really impressed so far for how limited it is. just ordered a micro-usb cable with a female (regular) usb end so i can hook stuff up directly to it, but i'm guessing Steve Jobs will personally visit my apartment to laugh in my face when i try to sync my ipod using the Touchpad. darn. wanted all that music off my laptop.

[1992casey]

You can get mass quantities of gigabytes of storage on a self-powered portable hard drive for less than the cost of the TouchPad. Maybe you want to take it back and buy a hard drive.

[jjkoestler]

Game - I'll buy it from you if you decide you don't need/like it. I need a new toy.

[1992casey]

Here's one analyst's view of this fiasco.

 

HP's TouchPad fire sale: The fallout

HP’s TouchPad liquidation fiasco hurts its reputation with consumers and businesses.…

 

HP looks willy nilly.…

 

Retail partners are going to be wary of HP going forward.…

 

Tablet pricing is shot.

[giffted1]

FYI for anyone looking to get in on this deal:

 

Amazon has had them in stock periodically throughout the day and will price match. They also had them as Gold Box deals today. I got a 32GB one for $475.30. After a chat with a CSR, I'll be getting it for the $149 price. Just make sure you buy it from Amazon.com LLC, not a third party seller.

[1992casey]

Shutting off a lot of the logging that goes on in the background is supposed to speed these things up.

 

How to improve the performance of your new HP TouchPad

[rluzinski]

Got one through HP's site... now let's see if it actually ships. Can't wait until someone roots this thing and gets Android on it!