Updated: HP Touchpad Firesale: One Last Run From $500 to $99

Angela, what time did you order on BN.com? I ordered mine at 5:30 AM, and my status says "In Process: Not Yet Shipped". You said yours says on track to ship?
 
Son of Detroit said:
Angela, what time did you order on BN.com? I ordered mine at 5:30 AM, and my status says "In Process: Not Yet Shipped". You said yours says on track to ship?
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I don't know - scroll up the thread. My "thanks!" post came right after I submitted the order. In the Quantity Field it says 1 - Cannot Be Removed, and status says "Expected Ship Date August 24th" That would probably mean my warehouse theory doesn't ring true.

In other news, it appears that I will not be getting the 32gb machine from Zones after all. Now it says my order wasn't processed. :(
 
after following about the last 30 pages on SlickDeals.net forum what i can see is that almost EVERYONE who has recieved an email after the conifrm. email has received a cancellation email and there have been no shipping numbers sent out.

One of the folks has said the rep they spoke to said that none of the Sunday orders are going to be fulfilled. That is of course a rumor and not substantiated but don't get your hopes up. I ordered another from zones.com but i doubt it will actually ship.
 
angelatc said:
Don't you think it's more likely that they'll sell their webOS for a premuim, using these sales as evidence that there's a legitimate market for devices running it? Of course, I don't think these stiff sales show anything other than a demand for a $99 portable web browser, but I could be wrong.
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HP wasn't able to license WebOS before they declared it a failure. Any company considering it now will have to design and produce a tablet for WebOS with superior planning than major corporation HP, and do so within a year - before Win8 is released. Win8 is being designed with an emphasis on tablets, as this will be the first MS OS to run on ARM architecture widespread in smaller computers, and have many features currently missing from Windows resulting in clunky user experience on tablets.

I'm fairly sure Win8 will push smartphone OSes like Android back to smartphones exclusively, and allow tablets to be used as a desktop replacement on top of the major hardware innovations in Nvidia's Tegra line. They can replace laptops, media PCs, notebooks, e-readers and pretty much everything else. Hell, they may even cut in to smartphone sales! If you can find a WiFi connection, you can get solid phone service for FREE through Google Voice (handles SMS, too). This may actually be viable in communities with free wifi. I think tablets will be the only computer most people will "need" within a few years' time. Already, the vast majority of people would be fine using the PC technology of 5 years ago. Making powerhouse PCs is a waste of most manufacturers' time because few people can justify a $1,000+ PC, so new computers need to be extremely low-priced, easy-to-use, and be able to run all common software. With Win8 & Nvidia Tegra, this will happen for tablets.
 
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Kludge said:
I think tablets will be the only computer most people will "need" within a few years' time. Already, the vast majority of people would be fine using the PC technology of 5 years ago. Making powerhouse PCs is a waste of most manufacturers' time because few people can justify a $1,000+ PC, so new computers need to be extremely low-priced, easy-to-use, and be able to run all common software. With Win8 & Nvidia Tegra, this will happen for tablets.
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Won't that require cloud computing? I have no interest in that. (And I am using a 2006 laptop even as I type. :) )
 
Kludge said:
HP wasn't able to license WebOS before they declared it a failure. Any company considering it now will have to design and produce a tablet for WebOS with superior planning than major corporation HP, and do so within a year - before Win8 is released.
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Well it has been on some smartphones for a while. Its a nifty little OS that had a lot of potential and is easy to develop for (you write apps in javascript and html exclusively). But they ran into the age-old problem of needing developers and a market. They should sold them cheap for a loss much sooner.
 
Napoleon's Shadow said:
Why do I smell a marketing ploy here?
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Well even if it is, which it may be, the people who are getting a good deal on these are still getting a really good deal.. but if they realized their market share was going to be tiny, and they know the only way to be successful is to have a thriving app market and large user base, then they may have decided to forfeit short-term profits on the sale of the hardware to get people onto their platform.
 
dannno said:
Well even if it is, which it may be, the people who are getting a good deal on these are still getting a really good deal.. but if they realized their market share was going to be tiny, and they know the only way to be successful is to have a thriving app market and large user base, then they may have decided to forfeit short-term profits on the sale of the hardware to get people onto their platform.
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There's just no market for another $500 tablet. The market for a $99 tablet seems to be quite alive though.
 
Zones update:

Called for both my orders, both are being cancelled. If your order number is B1549 or before, you might be lucky...

You can call and find out: 1-(800)-408-9663 (if you're on hold, they have no music and it's just silence, stay on the line).
 
i'm pondering driving to my local office depot to see if its in stock there, but do I want to fight the traffic at this hour only to come out empty handed.
 
Napoleon's Shadow said:
Why do I smell a marketing ploy here?
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It's not a marketing ploy. HP has been tanking for the past 6 months and have to drop their unprofitable business units if they want to stabilize. Their stock is down about 40% YTD.

If it was a marketing ploy, I suspect it would be an illegal one. You can't mislead your investors like that and get away with it.
 
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angelatc said:
Won't that require cloud computing? I have no interest in that. (And I am using a 2006 laptop even as I type. :) )
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Not necessarily. Microsoft is pretty hell-bent on moving it's products over to clouds so it can better control how it's used, but the majority of software will still be available as a download to your hard drive, as it is now for Windows. MS may release tablet apps specifically for cloud use, but with a huge development base, I suspect devs of software like LibreOffice would produce superior alternatives before MS, and at no charge. Tegra's team has a very ambitious development line -- by the time a Win8 tablet rolls around, the Tegra processor will be able to handle just about anything you could imagine throwing at it, making use of clouds for portable devices irrelevant except for MS's desire to prevent piracy.

Perhaps the biggest design decision for tablet manufacturers will be how much storage they want to put on the tablet. Too little storage capacity (as is the case with many current tablets & smartphones), and it needs the cloud to run apps. The root choice is between initial price-point and functionality - but I don't think this will be as much of a problem as currently while SSDs continue to come down in price.
 
Here's what you do:

1) Get check4change (firefox) addon.
2) Go to http://newegg.com / http://buy.com / whatever other website is speculated to have not reduced prices, but may.
3) Highlight the price of the product (I do both a 16GB & 32GB touchpad), right click > Check for change... > Check every [whatever]...
4) Update us if any serious price changes occur. You'll hear "ch-ch-changes" and a tap will pop-up.

:D
 
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