HP Reviving the $99 Touch Pad On December 11th 121
Frankie70 writes "Starting Sunday, December 11th at 6:00 p.m. Central time, 16GB and 32GB Touchpads will be available on HP's ebay store. A $79 accessory bundle will also be available, which includes a case, charging dock and wireless keyboard. The caveat with this deal is that these are refurbished TouchPads rather than the brand new models sold during the first firesale."
Re:No Love for the Touch Pad? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Er, no. (Score:5, Informative)
Just speaking as a person who tried and failed multiple times to get orders in for one of the firesale units with multiple vendors -- and went to multiple retail stores in search of one... only to be shut out by the douchebags who bought dozens at a time. And whose attempts to get orders in with a certain few vendors ended up tying up charges against my credit cards for weeks as, slowly -- one by one -- each vendor admitted "yeah, we just don't have enough. sorry for sitting on your cash."
Have fun, all you wild-eyed bargain hunters. I'll just sit this one out.
Re:Should I buy one? (Score:5, Informative)
I have both the Touchpad and the iPad 2. I like the Touchpad interface better than the iPad interface.
That being said, you have to understand that there are a limited number of Apps for WebOS. So you won't be able to find WebOS versions of your favorite apps. But it is a great for browsing, email, twitter, facebook, and can be used as a picture frame / photo viewer as it has a slideshow mode when plugged in. This alone is worth the $$.
You currently have the option to dual boot to an older version of Andriod (Cyanogenmod) that has been developed. It's still in beta, so there are bugs to be worked out. On the horizon is the pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow, Ice Cream Sandwich. It is anticipated that a version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the Touchpad will be available before March of 2012. This opens up the Touchpad to the Andriod marketplace and makes it a cheap modern table.
Re:Er, no. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What (Score:4, Informative)
These are refurbs. And they're refurbs of an EOL'd tablet that they're not making any more of, and won't have spare parts to fix (since they're using all the spare parts to make as many as possible to reduce the bath they're taking by scrapping the product). Pretty questionable purchase, but for $100 maybe it's worth it.
My sister has two - one for each kid. The games they had seemed fun, and if they break it it's not like it's a $600 iPad.
Re:Refurbished stuff has (Score:5, Informative)
I've purchased dozens of refurbished consumer electronics, and I know other people who have as well, nearly all of those devices are still working just fine months and years beyond their warranty expiration. I've seen maybe 5-10% failure rate on refurbs, which is about the same as my record with "brand new" consumer electronics. YMMV, IANAL, KTHXBYE
Re:Er, no. (Score:5, Informative)
My mother-in-law ordered one from HP and was met with silence. For the entire month she put up with it, they'd charge her account $150 every friday and then return it. Effectively this meant she was missing $150 even though she didn't have the item. Additionally, she had typo'd her address when she submitted it. When she called to correct it, surprise surprise, they couldn't. All she could do was cancel and resubmit the order... which would have meant no Touchpad for her. While technically her fault, why the call center she talked to couldn't modify her order is beyond me.
My experience was a little better. I didn't mind the $150 disappearing and the address was correct when I submitted it, but HP was TERRIBLE about telling me wtf was going on. On their web page the order status was set to something bizarre like "ORDER COMPLETE" or something that made it sound like my Touchpad was right here. It wasn't. When I tried to email them I was given a generic answer about how I'd get my order within a few weeks and they're very sorry and it took three paragraphs to explain these two simple concepts. It was definitely a source of frustration.
I wouldn't say it "doesn't hurt". It may not hurt enough, but unless they've dramatically improved their customer service, it likely will hurt some.
Re:Er, no. (Score:4, Informative)
HP is one of the vendors I tried to buy from who sat on my $150 for 3+ weeks, renewing the hold every Friday like clockwork until finally canceling it with no attempt to reconcile with me as a customer.
Re:Should I buy one? (Score:3, Informative)
I have an iPad. I have a Touchpad. I'm not a big app buyer. Browser, maps, play back videos I download to the Touchpad (it acts like a flash drive when connected to any operating system), email, VPN, some light typing, YouTube. All the flash in a browser you'd want. Once you learn how to close a window (just toss it off the top of the display) you're good to go. Within two days of getting my Touchpad I've stopped using my iPad. Literally. I haven't gone back. What about music. Come on, is that what you'd use a tablet for? OK, it has booming stereo speakers and I listen to Internet radio and podcasts, too. It's good enough even without apps (though I'm eyeing the app to make a bluetooth connection with an automobile monitor to have instantaneous display of MPG and other car functions). Do I have to say it? For the price.... come on! Your iPad is a sunk cost. You're only paying to free yourself (I can now do the crossword on a newspaper's web page, see those special report videos, and find out what I was missing). For the price, the hardware is thrown in for free.
Re:Er, no. (Score:4, Informative)