Best Buy Seeing HP TouchPad Sell-Through Rate of Under 10%

[MSM Hobbes]

BB $150, thank you

Happened to be in Best Buy tonight, the lady that was helping me in another area [frig... ours died ], mentioned that she had been helping in the electronics area, that these were selling fairly fast,,, so she called on her headset, had a 32GB version saved for me. Contemplated pros / cons, and decided to get it - figured for $150, provides means to store photos, music, etc. and browse the 'net. So, from what I've been reading, this is a good deal, for what this device offers? Curious, so can decide if its worth going to get another one, as gift, etc.? Wonder who may pick up support for this OS in the future,,, develop apps for it,,, anyone?

 

[VitaminD]

Plus, you can OVERCLOCK webOS devices and do it safely. I am not sure you can do it with the TouchPad right now, but knowing how passionate the homebrew community can be, it will likely be possible. TouchPad also has the latest webOS update at 3.0. Patches from Preware polishes up the many quirks and add some nice customization like it was jailbreaking your iPhone.

Anybody who gets one of these, check out the PreCentral forums. There is a process on how to get Preware in there and the many other things as it isn't as easy as jailbreaking an iPhone. But once you figure it out on how to use it, no big deal. It took me a day just figuring out how to bypass this Palm profile on my Pixi and put it in developer mode. Check YouTube and forums to help you. Many webOS users can be tech savvy and helpful.

Lots of good info in your post. Much appreciated. Registered on PreCentral.

 

[Savor]

Lots of good info in your post. Much appreciated. Registered on PreCentral.

No problemo!

It is nice homebrew community and helpful without too much of the bickering from rabid fanboys. I've always followed webOS since its announcement in CES 2009 but only been a user for a month and already love the OS.

And yes, I found out the TouchPad can be overclocked. You need UberKernel and Govnah installed to do this.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/overclocking-the-hp-touchpad-cranks-up-the-speed/3581

The many patches and overclocking from Preware can pretty much polish off some of hardware issues that has plagued webOS devices. Get Preware installed, and you should be fine adding some of the system tweaks like UberKernel and Govnah.

There is also this great patch where you can download YouTube videos similar to MxTube/MiTube on iPhone. But you can start downloading the vid within the YouTube app and then see it stored in videos.

 

[VitaminD]

Excellent, thanks again. Hopefully the 3 I ordered through HP SMB will not get cancelled.

 

[nateo200]

The Pre marketing was odd, especially that first beautiful but confusing ad series with all the (real, not digital) monks and the woman.

Palm's biggest sales mistake was going exclusive with Sprint too long. People on Verizon and other carriers lost interest.

There's what I was looking for! I totally drew a blank on the Sprint exclusive aspect. I remember allot of people saying the phone looked cool, they loved demoing it but the Sprint thing was a turn off. I mean Sprint is not a horrible carrier its just everyone likes to stay on there current carrier because they are well finacially tied to it, especially high schoolers which I was at the time. The Sprint exclusive thing was smart for about 3 months then it just got stupid money wise...by the time it was on Verizon no one even cared.

 

[Savor]

Yup, that was Palm's many miscues. The long Sprint exclusive. But they were already losing marketshare BEFORE the iPhone and Android came along thanks to BlackBerry. Back in 2006-2007, the Pearl and Curve were huge sellers for RIM. It was too little and way too late for Palm by 2009. Then webOS developers like Matias Duarte and Rich Dellinger already jumped off the sinking ship and moved onto Android and iOS.

HP who wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire with their iPAQ/WinMo phones wasn't going to revive Palm last year. At least the recent fire sale of TouchPad selling out can make more people open their eyes on webOS' potential. One man's trash can be another man's treasure.

I say $99 is a steal for a tablet with a nice OS like that. You basically bought a bigger (and beta) version of the BlackBerry PlayBook for cheap. Preware is basically like Cydia and you can tweak it to your liking with several patches and overclocking. Apps in Preware should still be updated thanks to the homebrew community. For the lucky folks who picked up a TouchPad for $99 or $149, try to enjoy! Should make a nice spare tablet for a bargain of a price and if you are NOT too much invested in apps.

HP TouchPad: webOS tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPQBEG6E6gE

BlackBerry PlayBook vs HP TouchPad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8AYZlBebRU

^^ QNX and webOS are generally my favorite current OSes over iOS, WP7, and Android. The future for better multi-tasking will take cues from them. QNX is much better at Flash playing, but they did copy the webOS' UI.