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.'"

Comments

Can't price match the tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Oops

[nmb3000]

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!

To be liquidated...

[Microlith]

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.

Hitler Learns HP 's Abandoning WebOS

[theodp]

"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.

Apple isn't about product anymore.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

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.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[CharlyFoxtrot]

The lesson here is not about solid engineering, eye-catching design, or pricing.

Yes it is. The iPad is a solid products and has become the touchstone. If you want to compete with something that's perceived as the tablet you have be either:
- significantly better and the same price
- at least as good at a lower price

Sadly the TouchPad was neither. To bad too, I'd have liked Palm's progeny to at least survive.

Most people who bought an iPad don't even know the specs..

The vast majority of people don't know the specs of their PC's either. The great thing is that with tablets they don't have to. Tablets are bought on the following considerations: "Can I run the popular apps?", "Does it feel responsive?", "Does the battery last me at least a whole day of use?" The iPad kills on all 3 of these criteria. And what were the most often heard complaints against the Touchpad ? That it "felt slow" and there were no apps. No one except uber geeks cares about tablet specs.

Apple has gotten to the point where people just buy their products because everybody chants how great they are.

That's a myth. Apple users are some of the most critical around. That's why you keep hearing very vocal complaints about problems with Apple systems that impact a small minority of its users. And a lot of the new iPad/iPhone users who aren't traditional Apple fans would leave at the drop of a hat if something better came along. These are just regular consumers, not geeks, they go with what works.

Ubuntu and Android

[Anonymous Coward]

See:
http://liliputing.com/2011/08/hp-touchpad-afterlife-hackers-bringing-android-ubuntu-to-hps-tablet.html

Links in the article

My brother has one

[spectro]

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 :(

Re:From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Mon

[CharlyFoxtrot]

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.

Re:Best Buy?

[0123456]

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.

Re:Not worth even $99

[Jmc23]

Let's see, decent video player, web browser, ebook reader, good for reading technical pdf's, same screen as ipad2, comparable hardware with anything out there now AND you can program directly on it using html5 and their javascript framework that exposes the hardware.

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.

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[LurkerXXX]

Try WebOS first. It's actually a really good OS. It's linux. Rooting it is as simple as typing in the Konami Code to put it in Developer Mode (root).

There are a lot of homebrew apps for it, with their own Homebrew appstore, PreWare. Well, not an appstore really because it's all free there.

Palm's problem was they had crappy hardware for it, and insanely bad advertising. HP hasn't done anything much with it since they bought it a year ago. Sad. A very intuitive and good looking OS. The one thing you will miss out with on the TouchPad is the gesture area that is on the phones. They make task switching pretty awesome when you are multitasking a lot of things. Another bad move by HP to leave that off the TouchPad.

Re:Not worth even $99

[catmistake]

e-reader
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.

Re:I ordered 2

[iamhassi]

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.