HP begins TouchPad clearance with $99 fire sale | Hacker News Reader

HP begins TouchPad clearance with $99 fire sale

appleinsider.com

26 pointsevo_949 comments

I just got one for free about a week ago. I don't mean to dance on its grave, but I wouldn't pay $50 for one.

I don't find most of the UI beautiful or elegant, most of it was too dark and reminded me of those first ugly mobile Linux GUIs , some of WebOS is quite well-designed, pretty, and usable, though.

The big issue for me is how long it took to load things, be they apps, websites, or search results. Whereas, the iPad 2 does everything just about instantaneously, it was a 3 second wait for anything to happen on the TouchPads. Those 3 second lags really add up on annoyance after a little while.

I wanted to believe, but in the end, it seems I was right.

Compared to what else you can buy for $50 (not a single comparably sized tablet I know of), you still wouldn't find it worthwhile? It's fair to compare it to an iPad 2 at its original price, but at $99 that's not what it has to beat.

Using it for nothing more than a digital frame and movie player would cover the $99 price.

No, but I can see why others would find it valuable at $50 or even $150. For me, it was just really bad. I was hoping WebOS would be my true alternative to iOS, but it just didn't make it there.

Great dev tools, though.

Can I pay you 50 dollars for it? :D conrad.twizzle [at] gmail [dot] com

I'll buy it from you if you don't want it. Please email jimduggan at yahoo

Arrg. I don't want one of these. I don't. I've mocked this tablet for two months. I'd rather keep my $99-$149 and apply it towards another iPad or the ASUS Eee Transformer.

But it's only $99. Wifi, IPS display, an OS that isn't completely horrible? I would be too ashamed to use it at work unless I disguised it as a photo frame. But the kids would love it.

Supposedly, some Cyanogenmod guys are buying TouchPads to see if they can put Android on them. I'm unsure of the feasibility of this as I don't know much about the hardware and bootloader situation on the TPs.

Already seeing these out of stock. Not all the surprising, but had they just sold these at, say, $199 (or even $249) they'd have flown off the shelves. People would put up with some flaws/kinks for something with promise.

What would that have done for HP?

Well... they'd likely have lost money on each one. But... they'd have had a much larger market of consumers and developers. Even better, they may have been able to establish some footholds in verticals that android or ipad might be establishing.

"But wait! They can't lose $X on every unit and still be profitable!". In the short term, probably not. But... they've got profits from other divisions that could have propped this up while they established marketshare. Microsoft's done this quite successfully over the years in some markets.

Instead of charging $499, then planning to spend millions in marketing, just cut the price to cost, and let the product do the talking. I wanted one of these, as did several people I know. But $499... was simply too much for a late contender. But rather than overcharging then trying to bolster demand for it via marketing/ads, they could have cut the price.

It's pretty clear that at $99, they're selling out, even without the chance of any future updates/patches or even mass market utility. $199-$249 and pretty much no marketing costs would have still guaranteed a large market for this, and set the stage for HP to be a real contender in this space.

I guess that's thinking way too much outside the box though... Yes, it's speculation, but it would have been a much stronger alternative than how it ended up, and left HP with a chance to grow here. :/

If anybody sees legit links for $99, please post. I was going to get an iPad, but for $99...

Edit: spelling. I can't type.

Lots of success reports on this thread - 32gig model for $135-ish (plus tax?)

http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/9a3e7678-7eb1-4b7f-88ea-...

In Canada Future Shop, Bestbuy, & The Source all sold out online, but may get more stock. In store they are available, but good luck finding stock.

In the USA apparently HP direct has updated their pricing - they likely have the most stock, so I'd suggest calling/ordering from them first.

I have an iPad & iPad2 already, but I'll pick up one or two of these. I find tablets handy to keep around, keep in the car, etc. Hell, even as a Christmas present you'd be the most popular guy in the office giving these out ;-)

Some ideas for what you can use them for:

Easy browsing on roadtrips (wifi from your phone) Picture Frame/Video player Taking Notes Viewing photos Games on flight, etc.

At $99 this is a no brainer for me, but I get a lot of gadgets

At $99 I'm sure I could find a use for one. Low price GeckoBoard/Leftronic mini status board? Good looking digital photo frame?

These would rock Geckoboard pretty well I imagine, or any dashboard app. Might consider getting one now...

This is really tempting, but the thought of being left with no security updates, no app support, etc., is concerning.

What are the odds of Android being able to show up on it?

They already said they would continue to support current devices and continue to work on webOS.

Why would they continue to do any of that? There is no money to be made. They couldn't even bother to continue to sell the devices for more than 48 days.

There's always the Pre/WebOS internals hacking team. The homebrew communities that build up around these types of products have always been extremely helpful.

Valid concerns indeed, but I don't get the desire to install Android on these. It feels kind of like buying a MacBook Pro to install Windows on... if MacBook Pros were built like mid-range Inspirons.

If Apple had just announced they were going to stop making computers and were discounting the rest of their stock by 80%, you'd see a lot of people buying them to install Windows on.

Sold out online at future shop, was going to get one. I could try door crashing the store tomorrow and see if they still have the one for demo...

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/hewlett-packard-hp-16...

Hmm a store near me still has some in stock. I'm actually considering picking one up. The Ars review notes the poor Flash performance as one of the main negatives. Is there any way to disable Flash in the browser?

The browser has a built-in ClickToFlash-esque feature that you can enable.

Was up coding while monitoring a few sites and saw that Walmart had updated their prices and that my local one had some in stock. Made it to the store in time to get the last two.

This worked for me in the last 30 minutes (9:30pm PST aprox)

1. Go here: https://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/register_epp.do

2. Register a new EPP account using company code: EP4297

3. Don’t click on anything, instead click on this link (32GB): http://www.shopping.hp.com/store/product/product_detail/FB35...

4. If you buy one (for ($149.00) use this coupon for $15 off: SAVE15HP

4B. If you more than buy one use this coupon for $30 off: SAVE30HP

It's already out of stock. Plus, it's not cool to use someone else's corporate discount (isn't that the US Army's code?).

Not sure I entirely agree but to each their own.

Tried just now and it give me the $149 price, but it says they're out of stock.

I believe the sale starts on 7 AM eastern time at HP.com. They still have them in stock.

It's already out on the 'deal sites' with thousands of comments and over a million views. People are buying them through HP Academy and HP EPP. Amazon had the lower price briefly then went back to $398, probably sold out whoever offered it at less instantly. The 16GB is already sold out at HP direct. By 7AM they won't have any 32GB left to sell either.

Edit: HP.com sold out of all models in around half an hour. Every other store that had it at the reduced price sold out in minutes. I suppose it's impossible, but gotta wonder if anyone at HP will be reconsidering the decision to dispose of WebOS when their TouchPads are sold out nationwide in less than a day.

WebOS's value will never be higher. Let the bidding begin.

office depot has them aorn. if anyone hears about this offer in europe i'd like to hear.

Pretty much anything will sell at an 80% discount :-)

Has anyone ported Android to it yet?

Why replace it with an inferior OS?

The inferior OS will have better support going forward, and a more impressive library of applications right now?

WebOS might be better now, but definitely not in a year.

I'd love to try WebOS, but the prospects of it having rich app support over the next 2 years are quite a bit lower than for Android.

A chance to try WebOS, with Android as a backup, would make this price a no-brainer. If it's just WebOS, well, then, I can make-do with my existing iPad.

Cant see any sign of discounting in the UK yet...

Office Depot seems to have the 32gb ones for 150.

thewiz.com still has the 32gb model in stock for $149

edit: sold out :(

Nyet. The site won't let you add it to your cart.

When I try to add it to my cart, they tell me it has been removed.

Are they also clearing the PC:s? I wouldn't mind an HP Envy..

No, HP is not going to stop making PCs, unlike tablets. They're just spinning off the division.

Ok. I thought there would be no more PC:s with the HP name. Thanks for the down-votes though!

Why would anyone buy one? It's a door stop.

I just want a tablet sized web browser to read HN in bed before I fall asleep. Hard to justify $499 on that.

Not only browsing but one cheap e-reader(Kindle App or the Cloud Reader).

Yep. You can't beat a $99 tablet that has a colored Kindle app.

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