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HP TouchPad To Be Liquidated At Fire Sale Prices
Hugh Pickens writes "According to an article by Tony Bradley, news is spreading quickly online that HP is going to clear out its vast TouchPad inventory by dropping the price to an offer you can't refuse. Rumor has it that beginning Saturday the 16Gb TouchPad will be $99, and the 32Gb TouchPad will be a measly $149. 'It is actually a fairly capable tablet. It's just not an iPad 2,' writes Bradley. 'For $500 it was a joke. For $300 it was still a shady deal. For $99 it's a steal.' HP has learned the hard way, and quickly pulled the plug on its tablet, proving that HP never had a solid tablet or mobile strategy and that it was really just looking for an excuse to get out. 'The reality is that my Best Buy is swimming in unsold HP TouchPad inventory,' adds Bradley. 'I went out tonight and picked mine up at the regular $400 price to beat the rush. Situations like this are why they invented price matching. I can just go back with my receipt once the fire sale starts and get the price adjusted and the difference refunded.'"
From their price matching FAQ:
Does the HP TouchPad tablet qualify for the Price Match policy?
No. The HP TouchPad is on clearance and we will no longer be selling the units so we will not offer any price matches. We do offer a 60-day return/exchange policy for this product.
Should have read a bit more closely there, buddy:
The Guarantee does not apply to: Our competitors' website prices, offers that include financing, bundling of items, free items, pricing errors, mail-in offers, competitors' service prices, items that are advertised as limited-quantity, out of stock, open-box, clearance, refurbished/used items, BestBuy.com Midnight Sale and special hour sale events, BestBuy.com Outlet Center and Marketplace items, and items for sale Thanksgiving Day through the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Emphasis mine. I'm 100% confident that the HP tablet will be marked as both "limited-quantity" and "clearance".
Oops. Oh well, at least you beat the rush!
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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To be?
More like was, and in the blink of an eye. Every place around here is sold out and Best Buy took 'em all off the shelves to send them back to HP. I imagine there will be some slow firesales from HP later as they arrive.
Can one remove the WebOS and replace it with Android? Otherwise this about as useful as the Apple Newton. It's neat, but if the operating system is going the way of the Dodo, then who is going to develop apps for this thing?
"In the latest parody remix of Downfall, the classic war film that depicts Adolf Hitler's last days in Berlin. the fictional Hitler unhinges upon learning of HP's decision to abandon WebOS and the TouchPad.
I applied the 80-20 rule here: It's got a web browser which means it can do 80% of what the iPad can do at 20% of the price, discontinued or not.
Before anyone brings up "apps" as the reason to go with the iPad at a 400% price premium - let me say that I own an iPhone and the overwhelming majority of time I spend with it is in the email and safari apps. Apps are nice when they are available - especially given the iPhone's small form factor that makes interacting with some websites painful - but not a necessity.
(Feb. 9, 2011) HP Launches 'Everybody On' Global Marketing Campaign: The 'Everybody On' campaign kicks off with a 60-second anthem TV spot featuring an instrumental version of Lou Reed's iconic song 'Walk on the Wild Side'...This year the GRAMMY Awards telecast will feature the new HP TouchPad, the first HP webOS tablet...
If you are in the industry and still think you can compete with Apple, you will end up like HP.
The lesson here is not about solid engineering, eye-catching design, or pricing. It is about how to avoid contesting something that is in a league of its own, in the zone, and has become a force of nature. They're at Exxon levels. And to do that as a tech company that actually makes something is insane.
Apple right now is Mike Tyson in his heyday. Many Tyson fans didn't follow boxing. They followed Mike. It's the same with Apple. Most people who bought an iPad don't even know the specs. The iPad commercial probably isn't what got them to buy it either. They simply don't care.
HP spent a ton of money getting celebrities to do fancy commercials, and the design and specs of their Tablet isn't bad either. But it's too bad, because no one cares.
Apple has gotten to the point where people just buy their products because everybody chants how great they are. If you dare step in the ring with them, they'll knock you the &%$# out and take everything you put into the fight.
I am not an Apple fan, but it doesn't take one to see what is going on. If you understood the phenomenon that is Apple right now, you'd think twice before picking a fight.
This HP Touchpad Fire sale is the best lesson any Non Apple tablet manufacture should learn when it comes to tablet sales. The current Android tablet market is trying to command IPad pricing without being an Apple product. ICultists wont touch it with a 10 foot pole at any price because it's not made by Apple and everyone else that's on the fence is going to see the identical price and buy the Ipad because either they saw it on TV more / their ICult buddy recommended it and since they're priced the same might as well get what everyone else is talking about...
HP goes out and announces that WebOS hardware is dead, lets it sink in for a day or two, then cuts the price down from $399 and $499 to $99 and $149 respectfully and sells out in hours even though everyone knows they're discontinued and WebOS has a shaky future if any. If that doesn't scream that the tablet was overpriced than nothing on earth will.
Non Apple Tables are priced roughly $200-300 too expensive. Get them around $199-$299 and they'll sell like gangbusters just like it did for Android phones in the mobile market.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Wow, if they had been willing to eat the cost and sell them at this price in the first place they might have been a contender.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
until I realized it ran webOS. If it was Android, it would be a different story. Honestly, what made them use webOS? And price this thing the same as the iPad? Were they setting themselves up for failure purposefully?
What most of these tabled companies don't realize is that no one will pay the same price as the iPad for their tables because they are much more likely to just bail out of 2 consecutive sales reports aren't gangbusters. Apple is here to stay, so why would anyone buy a product that will likely be abandoned in a "focus realignment" meeting between some MBAs.
Put Linux on it duh.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
See:
http://liliputing.com/2011/08/hp-touchpad-afterlife-hackers-bringing-android-ubuntu-to-hps-tablet.html
Links in the article
He works for HP and got one when they put them on sale for $300 a few weeks ago. I played with it last week and kinda liked it.
It's a solid piece of hardware, slick UI and really fast.
No, it doesn't run android and doesn't have data plan but after playing with it I would definitely buy it for $99 if only to browse the internet when watching tv or in a hotel.
Too bad they are sold out already :(
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
HP's Eric Cador said, "In the tablet world, we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus."
From "number one plus", to "number two, flush" in three months.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I'm hoping that this decision was based on negotiation talks that HP was having with other manufacturers where the companies basically said ok we'll be willing to license WebOS from you as long as we don't have to compete on the hardware front with you. There's a business decision i think would be more in line with HP than automatically assuming they're idiots.
Besides, which other tablet can you program directly on the tablet and have complete control over the hardware through javascript? Javascript being a decent language if you don't use it like a script kiddie or procedural programmer, more like lisp with c syntax.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
They've got a pretty liberal return policy. Sometimes I "rent" from them until I am sure I want to buy something, and then I return it to best buy and order it online from Newegg or Amazon.
You were the kind of person we used to hate when I was in the hardware business; you'd 'rent' our hardware from the store, then return it and we'd then have to QA it again and sell it as a refurbished product.
Then people would complain that hardware prices were high. Well, duh.
What the hell are you doing on slashdot because you clearly aren't a geek! It'd be worth it just to carry around programming reference pdfs.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
email
web browser
address book
calendar/appointments/alarm clock
I got an iPad first week released. Love it. For all the development Apple has poured into iPad/iOS, all I have ever used it for is listed above. I'm recommending TouchPad to anyone that wants a tablet.
The Admin and the Engineer
Browse the web. Play FLASH. Do your emailing. Play games. Play movies, Install a lot of free/open source apps from the mod community....
He's AC and he's obviously trolling saying something as stupid as buying "obsolete" hardware is wrong at any price. This is /., most of us probably have hardware we bought at one point that was obsolete just to tinker with.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
HP's Eric Cador said [time.com], "In the tablet world, we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus."
Even without hindsight making it look stupid... how the f*** can *anyone* utter such mindlessly silly drivel with a straight face? It sounds like a cross between something from David Brent in "The Office" and Homer Simpson.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
It's more like "don't bother competing with them on their terms"
When the iPod first came out ("No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame"), everyone thought it was just about the hardware, so concentrated on the technical specs. By the time it was realised that it was about the whole "Here's a way to manage your music that's easier than doing it by hand", they'd already cleaned up. The problem is, that once one company is dominant, their "new model" is now the "old model", so merely doing the same won't work.
It's not new either:
Old model: buy a computer, and then install the operating system.
New model: buy a PC, and the OS is pre-installed. (Microsoft's first big win)
Competing on their terms and losing: buy an IBM PC, and get OS/2
Old model: buy your preferred word processor (WordPerfect or WordStar). Buy your preferred spreadsheet (Lotus 1-2-3 or SuperCalc). Maybe buy a drawing / presentation program (DrawPerfect or Harvard Graphics)
New model: buy a suite, and you get the wordprocessor, spreadsheet and presentation software for just over the price of one of them. (Microsoft's second big win)
Competing on their terms and losing: WordPerfect Office, Lotus SmartSuite
So, HP needed to do more than "tablet plus apps available", as that was just competing on their terms and losing.
"She's furniture with a pulse"
It's not like I'm being dishonest here. When I return the item to Best Buy and they ask my reason for returning I tell them up front "I didn't like the product" or "I found it for $50 less online" - and they've never cared.
If they wanted to discourage this behavior they could do any number of things, like charging a restocking fee, offering to price match online retailers, or... and I know this is a stretch... just price things competitively to start with.
The reason that they don't do any of these things is that Best Buy is all about the impulse buy. They don't want their customers to research reviews or shop for the best price. Instead they offer up the guarantee that you can price match the product later or return it if you are unhappy, and bank on the fact that most people are going to be too lazy to take them up on the offer.
Don't hate me for being a rational consumer.
$99.00 + tax here in Vancouver area. There was a line-up at the Best Buy when the doors opened. Everyone was saying "I don't really have a use for this, but it's too good and too cheap to pass up."
Not a bad price for a decent quality web browser for my coffee table. Looks nice enough, works great. I don't care about the lack of an app ecosystem - this is hackable, slick hardware. I'll find something to do with it.
You know, there are going to be hundreds of thousands of these things in people's hands in the next week or two, people who have never had a tablet before. HP just created a market for WebOS apps. By mistake? Hmm.
Reminds me of the local radio ads I hear for events that happens the day prior.
I tried one out at Carphone Warehouse today (owned by Best Buy UK). When I tried to read http://news.bbc.co.uk/ it kept refreshing the page every time I tried to scroll up or down, and it took about 15-30 seconds every time to do this, making the browsing experience so frustrating it was virtually unusable. Having tried all the tablets in there, the iPad is the only slab I would buy. I do have an Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S which I am very happy with, but nobody seems to have an answer to the iPad yet.
I prefer apps to websites on the phone because you only have to download data when you use it, rather than user interface + data, so it is faster on slow connections, and they tend to be better designed for small screen + touch interface. On a tablet which has a bigger screen, and would mostly be used on a fast wifi connection, I'm not so sure that is important.
You were the kind of person we used to hate when I was in the hardware business; you'd 'rent' our hardware from the store, then return it and we'd then have to QA it again and sell it as a refurbished product.
Were the subject any other retailer, I'd say it was despicable. But Best Buy? I figure they deserve pretty much whatever happens to them. Maybe I'd feel different if members of my immediate family hadn't bought expensive new-in-box electronics from them, then got them home to find that they were quite used and banged up.
As soon as Best Buy loses its reputation for shady practices, borderline-retarded and flat out lying salespeople, and treating paid customers like shoplifters by attempting [*] to search sacks of purchased goods as people leave, maybe I'll be bothered to care what scams people [**] pull off against them. Until then, meh.
[*] Boy, they get pissy when you decline their "offer" to search your stuff.
[**] No, not me. I've happily avoided them altogether for over a decade. I wouldn't do those things because it's against my principals. I don't mind if you do, though, for much the same reason I wouldn't care if a pimp beat up a pickpocket.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
FYI, they just updated the web site. You can order from BestBuy.com now. It appears that they have both the 16GB and 32GB versions available. We just picked up a few.
The sad part as, I was in the market for a tablet. i checked the retail stores, and then compared what they had to the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. The Nook was well worth the money. It only lasted a few hours before I wiped it and put CM7 on. I will say, the Nook is a damned nice tablet, price or otherwise. I'm getting the HP Touchpads on the assumption that I can do something with them. I saw the mention of a group intending to port Android/CM7 over to it, and there may be an Ubuntu something.
I guess worse case, I'm out a few bucks. Best case, it works, and the market isn't saturated with them in the next week or so, and I can resell them on eBay for a profit. :) Most likely, they'll be used by friends and family. They'll pay me for them. I just won't be able to turn a profit on them. I guess the only other case is if I can make them work with a real OS (not WebOS), and I don't get rid of the others, I'll have spares, should mine get broken. I suspect replacement screens and batteries will be rather impossible to get in a few months. If people really get behind it, we'll probably see lots of hard hacks for these things, to upgrade the battery and storage. :) I haven't looked around enough yet to see what they use for storage, but I'd suspect it's built in flash. I already saw that before I bought the Nook Color.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.