Practically Giving Away the HP TouchPad, Still Too Expensive

By Jillian | August 21, 2011 | 10 comments

HP TouchPad The sales began this weekend, making the TouchPad available for a real bargain as part of the $100 million dollar write-off taken by HP. While the initial $100 rebate seemed like a nice perk, the 16GB and 32GB models can be purchased for $99 and $149 respectively.

Those of you who may have paid more needn’t worry. HP has offered to give full refunds if you choose, or just return the balance of what you paid minus the current retail price. This is a classy move on HP’s part, removing the bitter taste many of their customers likely had after hearing the devices were being discontinued.

Sure the price is attractive, but should you buy one? The choice is yours, but I’m not feeling the urge. While webOS may be adequate for most purposes, the joy of owning a tablet is found in the apps. There are currently only a few hundred webOS apps available, and I can’t imagine developers will be lining up to create more considering the downward spiral being traveled by that operating system.

The question a lot of us are asking is whether this hardware can run Android, but the answer isn’t clear. Several sources online indicate they have versions of Honeycomb already running on it, though officially the word is that an actual port is still in the works… which makes buying a TouchPad for this purpose a bit of a gamble, particularly for those who aren’t quite as tech savvy.

At prices like these, the ‘what the heck’ factor is high and is seeing TouchPads fly off the shelves. It won’t be long before the overstocks that retailers were complaining about will be depleted and HP will have done what they could to recoup anything they were able.

Do you think the response to this fire sale indicates that consumers are hungry for a tablet at this price-point, even if it’s sub-par compared to others that are available?

About Jillian: A professional. A geek. Writer. Music fanatic. Creative. Thoughtful. Programmer. Educated. Outgoing. Thrill seeker. Realistic. Optimist. Clever. Sarcastic. Not typical. Contact me on Twitter: @codeGoddess

http://www.facebook.com/Mr.Cr0wley David Laufer

Well I bought one because sooner or later we will get a port of Honeycomb on it. Can’t beat the specs either.
http://www.facebook.com/Mr.Cr0wley David Laufer

Well I bought one because sooner or later we will get a port of Honeycomb on it. Can’t beat the specs either.
Crypto Jones

Android runs off a linux Kernel, and is portable to almost anything. I bought one because of the price. Mark my words android WILL run on this, it is only a matter of time.
Crypto Jones

Android runs off a linux Kernel, and is portable to almost anything. I bought one because of the price. Mark my words android WILL run on this, it is only a matter of time.
Anonymous

At $99 and $149 the Touchpad is priced well below the point what consumers would be willing to pay. I work for a large retail operation. When we reduce prices on tablets by $100 we see a marked increase in sales volume. The week we reduced the Acer Iconia to $299 we couldn’t keep up with the demand.
Yesterday, the HP Touchpad madness was in full force. Our store could have sold hundreds of them if we had the inventory. We had 10 32gb models in stock and they sold within 30min after opening our doors. We fielded approximately 200-250 phone calls and walkins during the day as it seemed that everyone wanted to buy one. We were offered a higher price by some people because they thought we were holding out on them. It was quite a day.
The customers I spoke with told me they didn’t care about the future of the tablet at the price it was selling at. They told me that worse case they had an excellent product to surf and email and read. Others said that they expected someone to figure out how to port Honeycomb to it.
On Ebay, the 32gb version is selling for approximately $300 and that is probably the best indication of a true price point. $300 for a tablet with no future support? WOW!!!
Tik B Lang

For a techie like myself, it makes more sense to go out and buy one since it is geared towards web. It will help me check all my email in one place and possibly an ssh client to connect to the network I’m maintaining. It is still a steal with WebOS on it.

Right now my priority on this nice product is to figure out how I can share my Linux shared storage automatically if it sees my wi-fi network.
http://profiles.google.com/israrkhan91 Israr Khan

For $100 a pop, you just can’t argue. Android on it is inevitable, just needs time. Even if it doesn’t happen HP has said they will still continue to support webOS (as in updates and apps etc). In the unlikely even the Android is not ported and HP doesn’t support it, as long as it gets me on the internet, I’m a happy camper.
http://www.facebook.com/james.hassinger James Hassinger

You do know this has a browser, right? I use my iPhone primarily for two things, phone calls and browsing the web, and I think I browse the web more than take calls. As long as browser standards don’t change too much in the near future the HP Touchpad will be useful for several years which is all you can ask for from modern tech devices. I don’t see the point of a $500 iPad just to surf with, but a $100 Touchpad makes perfect sense, it’s the same internet for 1/5th the price.
Anonymous

big question: did HP complete and deploy the update that fixed all the bugs?
Bong Carpio

Some people will take Apple’s bait..hook, line & sinker…just like you.

Google the word “cult” and find out its meaning.

As the saying goes, ” People will always be proud of their stupidity.”

“Apple to death” is what these stupid people are saying.

My comment on Apple products? ” Been there, done that.”

Over-priced, over-hyped.