Even at a discount, HP TouchPad fails to attract consumers

By on Aug 10, 2011 at 9:23 PM
Tablets August 10, 2011

Last week, Woot dropped the price of HP’s webOS-powered TouchPad tablet to just $379.99, the lowest price the tablet had seen yet. Despite such an attractive offering, only 612 people purchased the tablet during the Woot sale on August 5th. That’s roughly 25% of the 2,288 Motorola XOOM tablets Woot sold in a single day last month. We suspect HP has struggled to attract consumers because it took 140 days to deliver the device to market — a lengthy time frame that certainly watered down consumer interest. It also probably also doesn’t help that HP has struggled to bring the Pre3, which can share websites seamlessly with the TouchPad using Touchstone, to store shelves. Perhaps the 1.5GHz processor-packing 4G version due to hit AT&T later this year will fare better. In the meantime, HP officially cut the price of the TouchPad to $399.99 for the 16GB version and $499.99 for the 32GB model following a sale that was initially advertised as ending earlier this week.

[Via SplatF]

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  • Anonymous

    Good luck with that HP…Asus Transformers can be had for $350 now and I know which one I would rather have. 

  • Anonymous

    It was pretty decent to play with in the store last night, but the app market was a barren wasteland. No apps makes the purchase a no go.

    • serpentor

      Yes, because the iPad had soooo many apps when it was released. /sarcasm

      Hell, it didn’t even have back ground processes until 6 months after it came out (and no reveiwer/users really complained about this). And I point that out because WP7 was blasted for not have multi tasking when it launched, but iPhone only got it 6 months before that.

      • Anonymous

        The iPad also didn’t have any competition then. Tablets released now are competiting against a brand that is becoming synonomous with the market as the iPod did for mp3 players. You can’t release a half-assed, rushed product with a poor ecosystem and not expect comparisons and criticism.

      • serpentor

        I don’t buy the app or ecosystem argument. Both iPhone and iPad was released with little app or no app selection. iPhone still sold without multitasking even though Android had it all along.

        The real problem with webOS is the hardware isn’t as sexy as it can be and the software isn’t as fast as it can be. HP fixes that and coupled with the lower price point, I think it sells.

        But we’ll see.

      • Anonymous

        Take a deep breath dude, you dont have to get mad because I wasn’t blown away by the minimal app selection. I don’t care what the ipad did or doesn’t have, as well as WP7 either. I simply stated their app selection was sub par for me to consider buying one. Ok, let out that breath now. Are you gonna be alright?

      • Eric

        There was no traction with consumers or developers when it came to the original webOS phones…what would make a difference now?  for some reason HP released phones that are identical to the Pam versions…definition of crazy? 

      • Anonymous

        You’re forgetting that when the iPad was released it had ZERO competition. It was ok not to have apps, no one else had anything like the iPad. It’s hard to get into the game at this point without apps, and/or something desireable that differentiates you from the pack. At this point the Touchpad has neither. The TP was a device aimed at competing directly with the iPad (not the iPad2). It’s at tleast one cycle behind on hardware. Had the TP been offered at the end of Feb, or beginning of March it might have had a better chance of gaining some traction. The fact that the Pre3 has not been released yet doesn’t help. Being able to use Touch To Share with a decent phone would have helped differentiate the TP. The veer won’t wow anyone, and hasn’t sold well. Problem with the Pre3 now is that it was a nice high-end entry into the market in February. Now? Not so much. 

  • Anonymous

    One day after the price drop = Fail ? ….. well ok then

  • http://www.TheGuruReview.net TGR

    Make sure you guys report actual info and not just from the Woot.

  • Anonymous

    I like the WebOS experience, but as I have said before, when i tried the touchpad in store, it seemed a little slow at launching stock apps such as the calendar, etc…in comparison to the iPad, and Android tablets.  I don’t think it is as buggy as Android, but the performance was a little lacking.  I loved the WebOS flow, and the UI is clean, BUT if HP doesn’t get developer support and start having apps available, it’s doomed.

  • http://twitter.com/drypulse bryan parker

    i’ll start caring about tablets when windows 8 comes out/i can run all my other stuff on them

  • Tom_young91

    Bestbuy Canada is now selling the 16GB version for $120 to staff company wide as per HP. Two day sale starting today… Basically giving them away

  • Bergeronjc

    Has there been a single TouchPad tv commercial? If not, then why? Aside from little promotions at Tigerdirect I haven’t seen a single advertisement for the TouchPad.

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