HP begins TouchPad clearance with $99 fire sale - Page 5

Originally Posted by AppleLover2

Wrong again.

The Stones were some of the early white boy blues musicians, while the early Beatles did rockabilly and rock ad roll covers.

Stones: R&B and blues cover songs dominated the Rolling Stones' early material, ... having been "rooted in traditional verities, in rhythm-and-blues and soul music",... primitive blues typified by Chess Records' artists such as Muddy Waters, who wrote the song "Rollin' Stone" after which the band is named... (From Wikipedia)

Beatles: Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll,... (again from wikipedia)

The early Beatles covered such artists as Little Richard and Carl Perkins, among others, while as pointed out above, the Stones were influenced much more by the artists on Chess.

And please don't claim that "it's really all just the same thing". It ain't.

Originally Posted by Granmastak

You can say that again. In a way it's back to the future... Everything old is new again, history repeats itself... thin clients (tablets instead of terminals) and mainframe (cloud instead of s370). Of course it's much more sophisticated than before, but the idea is the same.

HP said, I want to be in the mainframe business and not the terminals cause I just got my a$$ kicked.

Originally Posted by Smallwheels

This HP crash is a good lesson for Apple to learn about pricing. They will see just how fast items sell when the price is significantly lower. Apple won't drop prices below cost but they might change their mind about margins. In all things there is a point where dropping the price causes more sales that make up for the price drop in the overall profit scheme.

It would be good for all of us if Apple decided to do this with their products. They would get more overall income with lower prices. Their mind share would grow much faster and it would clobber even more of their competition.

Originally Posted by digitalclips

... and both bands loved Buddy Holly and were heavily influenced by him. I personally feel he is the strongest bridge between them and their main influences which you accurately describe.

Originally Posted by jragosta

That's not going to happen, nor is it the real lesson here.

The lesson for anyone smart is "if your product is not attractive enough, no one will buy it at a price high enough to cover your costs". Obviously, if you give something away, people are going to take it, but that would be an insanely stupid business strategy.

Apple can't make products fast enough to meet demand now - and none of the competitors are showing any chance of being a decent challenge. Why should they cut the price?

[Gizmodo:

But for every detail that Palm gets right—the re-sizable keyboard that’s pretty nice to type on—it blows something else, like not having a double-tap spacebar shortcut for periods, or the lengthy, complicated mounting process to get your music on there. …

There are critical apps in beta form, like Kindle and some surprises, like Facebook. … It’s funny that the TouchPad is the third tablet platform to run Flash, and it’s also the third tablet on which Flash runs like garbage.

The Messages app was a consistent bag of hurt, refusing to sign on at all sometimes, or to deliver AIM messages, even though I kept receiving them. Email contents wouldn’t show up, often up to 10 seconds after I opened a message. The HP app to get music onto your TouchPad is loathesome—pure HP, and sweet Christ I hope it’s not a sign of things to come for Palm. (Speaking of: Where’s the cloud music?) And there are so many more little problems throughout (ugh, Skype).

Josh Topolsky:

Presses to buttons on the screen would go unanswered, applications would suddenly pause, lists I was scrolling moved intermittently and erratically (or would just disappear altogether). Sometimes the device felt smooth and light, while at other moments it locked up or sputtered to a point of complete aggravation. More than once I had the entire system freeze and then reboot while I was in the midst of navigating (or trying to navigate) my way out of some weird UI fender bender. All across the OS I found myself discovering dark corners of unfinished or untested chunks of the UI, like when I would use the upward swipe gesture to bring up the launcher, and accidentally open an app instead.

And it wasn’t just about speed or smoothness. The new virtual keyboard provided here — while very capable at times — would often not respond or respond slowly to key presses, making for messy emails and messages. …

Skype, while integrated into the core of the OS for calls (more on this below), was generally buggy, frozen, unable to connect, or just downright awkward to use. Rotation on the device was a pain too, as it would often change direction unexpectedly, or alternately fail to respond to orientation shifts when it was asked.

Walt Mossberg:

[On] various occasions, the email app failed to display the contents of messages, the photos app failed to display pictures, and the game “Angry Birds” crashed repeatedly. All of these problems required a reboot of the device to resolve. In addition, I found the TouchPad grew sluggish the more I used it. Again, a reboot was needed to restore normal speed. …

The Web browser generally worked well, but Flash was uneven. Most Flash videos played fine, but some froze or stuttered badly, even on a fast Internet connection. A site written entirely in Flash wouldn’t even load.

Harry McCracken:

In my trials, the TouchPad too often just didn’t work. A few examples:

Music playback didn’t always begin the moment I pressed play, and sometimes stammered mid-song;
A 1080p movie that looked dynamite on the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 wouldn’t play at all on the TouchPad;
The tablet thoughtfully discovered and configured the HP printer that sits on my network. But whenever I tried to print, it told me that my OfficeJet was incompatible.
The TouchPad was at its shakiest when I crammed its RAM with a bountiful supply of apps, Web pages, and other items. Like an overtaxed Windows 98 computer, it would crack under the pressure, rendering screens incompletely, ignoring my input, and (on one occasion) spontaneously rebooting. Closing a few programs restored it to good working order. I know that it’s possible to build a tablet that doesn’t freak out when it’s short on memory, though — because I’ve never seen an iPad or Honeycomb tablet do it.

Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody

I probably shouldn't have said it as it just gets people riled up but you are wrong.

I was there. In England, as it happened.

Both groups started off doing a lot of covers but with some original songs. The Stones came to the Beatles to get them to write some original songs for them as they were having trouble selling their own even though they were already successful with the covers as you note. The Stones bought songs off of the Beatles when the Beatles already had copious amounts of original material.

I'm not claiming that the Stones were an outgrowth of the Beatles or were heavily influenced by them but the Beatles were definitely doing their own original material before the Stones and the Stones definitely bought some of their early material off of Lennon and McCartney before they got good at writing their own stuff. There's nothing wrong with that, it's how things were and it's how a group learns to write. But it did happen that way.

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

HP stated Friday it is taking a $100 Million loss on the TouchPad units. They cannot allow Best Buy to then go out and resell them.

Originally Posted by jragosta

Why do people insist on making fools of themselves online by posting about subjects they know nothing about?

Originally Posted by Granmastak

Geez, take it easy! It's just a forum where we're just shooting the shit, no big deal! It's not like its the HP executive board room or anything

Originally Posted by hill60

They've been pulled in Australia.

The HP site links to a retailer (with exclusive rights to sell) who has a "page not found" error

Originally Posted by Granmastak

Geez, take it easy! It's just a forum where we're just shooting the shit, no big deal! It's not like its the HP executive board room or anything

Originally Posted by jragosta

Sorry, but I happen to believe that people should keep their mouths shut when they don't know anything about a topic. Not only does it confuse innocent people who are smart enough to keep their mouths shut, but it wastes the time of people who DO know what's going on.

But feel free to parade your stupidity if you wish.

Originally Posted by jragosta

Sorry, but I happen to believe that people should keep their mouths shut when they don't know anything about a topic. Not only does it confuse innocent people who are smart enough to keep their mouths shut, but it wastes the time of people who DO know what's going on.

But feel free to parade your stupidity if you wish.

Originally Posted by island hermit

What??!! There are people on here that know what's going on??!! Har!

Originally Posted by grmac

This: http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTER...sAAAExQ1cRE3Kg

Will get you this when reviewing your Cart:

Microsoft VBScript compilation error '800a03e9'

Out of memory

/LM/W3SVC/600510919/Root/dstore/global.asa, line 0

Originally Posted by Alfiejr

this is a savage price massacre on all those cheap-o Android tablets that suckers buy. they won't sell any of them until the TouchPad glut is cleared out. and the even higher end brands like Samsung will have to knock $50-$100 off their prices too just to keep some sales going. however poor those sales are (they never say). Samsung might finally bite the bullet and dump the million+ 7" Froyo Galaxy tabs still sitting in warehouses and stockrooms after almost a year for $99 too. this might be their last chance to get anything for them at all.

and RIM's PlayBook? well, they shoot horses, don't they?

a true market Bloodbath.

Originally Posted by Stourque

And watching movies. At $99 these aren't a bad deal. But that's probably all they're worth.

Originally Posted by tortlebow

I just went to my local Best Buy and was told when I asked - point blank - that all the HP TouchPads had been recalled by HP and that Best Buy could not sell any of them.

Originally Posted by AppleLover2

Interesting. I'll have to find out more. I know a lot more about the Sun guys, like Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and other early rockabilly artists. Buddy Holly is an artist I have yet to explore deeply.

But if you like Buddy Holly, from my cursory knowledge of him, my guess is that you'd like Carl Perkins too. He's one of the greats. How do you feel about Johnny Burnett's early stuff?

Originally Posted by jragosta

Sorry, but I happen to believe that people should keep their mouths shut when they don't know anything about a topic. Not only does it confuse innocent people who are smart enough to keep their mouths shut, but it wastes the time of people who DO know what's going on.

But feel free to parade your stupidity if you wish.

Originally Posted by digitalclips

Should we all be lucky enough to be as smart as you.

Originally Posted by KPOM

I got online last night just before 1:00am Eastern after seeing this, and ordered a 32GB version and a ream of paper to qualify for a $30 coupon shortly before that model went out of stock on HP's site. It was stuck in the "Order Being Verified" status until a few minutes ago, so I was a bit worried that it would be cancelled based on the SlickDeals information. However, it just changed to "Item being processed" and the charge just hit my credit card, so it looks like it will be on its way. Net the cost of the paper (which I needed anyway), plus tax this worked out to just under $130 for the 32GB version. I wouldn't have bought it otherwise, but for that price, I'm sure I'll find some use for it. If and when an Android port surfaces, all the better.

Now HP's website has a "notify me when product available again" button, so I'm guessing that they are waiting for the big shipments of returns to arrive from Best Buy, etc. Anyway, it was wild on SlickDeals. A retailer in NYC unloaded over 6,000 of them in just over 30 minutes on eBay.

MacMall has yet to lower the price on them (according to a poster on SlickDeals, they were waiting on authorization from management - perhaps tomorrow or Monday), so they may be the next best chance for people looking for them.

Originally Posted by jragosta

It really doesn't take that much intelligence to keep your mouth shut about things you know nothing about.

Originally Posted by digitalclips

I disagree. The more you know, the more you know you don't know but alas the reverse is also true.

Originally Posted by jragosta

What in the world does that have to do with anything? With even a modicum of intelligence, people would realize that they're talking out of their nether regions about things they don't understand.

A reasonably intelligent person would say "I don't know how that works, so I'll keep my mouth shut". The people here (the ones you are defending) take the position "I don't have any idea what I'm talking about but I'll shoot off my mouth as if I'm an expert and hope no one catches me".

Is that REALLY the attitude you want to be encouraging?

Originally Posted by jragosta

I finally got mine ordered (a 32 and a 16). It does turn out that it works far better when ordering through an iOS device than a PC or Mac, but it still took hours.

Unfortunately, it did not give me free shipping as promised, nor would it accept any of the online coupons that should have worked - so I'll have to deal with HP customer service to try to get a credit.

We'll see if the order actually went through in a few days, I guess.