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

swingerofbirch said:
I was just at Best Buy and there was a very small, dingy area where two TouchPads should have been. One was missing and the other one wouldn't turn on and the cord to it was frayed. I was actually curious to use it because I have heard good things about the WebOS. Not only was one missing and the other wouldn't turn on but they still had the old (higher) prices listed. The Apple area on the other hand was much cleaner looking and everything was running properly. It's probably because Apple has employees that go and check up on the Best Buy displays and don't trust Best Buy itself to run the operation entirely.

In short, at the Best Buy I was at, I can't imagine a single TouchPad getting sold based on the way they were displayed. Maybe one was stolen at least, if not sold.
Click to expand...

Excellent observation. At Wal-Mart the Apple iPad display is inside a non accessible box. You can see the perfection inside the climate controlled chamber but no touchy!

The other devices at the counter don't turn on and are frequently hanging off the shelf with the security cord behaving much like a noose. Their fragile dead bodies swaying in the breeze of shopper passer-by's who couldn't care less.
 
There is no denying that iOS is the 500 pould gorilla of tablets, apple is enjoying much the same success with the iphone and ipad as Microsoft did with windows. So apples not in any danger whatsoever from the current crop of tablets.

That said, IMO WebOS is the by far my favorite of the competition, and from a developers perspective is an infinitely more comfortable environment than iOS. I develop and have a touchpad, ipad, ipad2 and honeycomb tablet so improbably a bit over exposed lol. My iPad2 is my daily driver but with a few small changes that could easily change to the Touchpad.

The touchpads problems...

Casing / Size
While i like the iPad like size and screen aspect ratio better than honeycomb wide screen devices the touchpad is too thick and a major fingerprint magnet. HP has a fondness for piano black gloss plastics that they really need to get over IMO.

OS
The OS is actually really good, does multi-tasking app switching so much smoother than iOS and its 'fun' to play with. But it lags, and a tablet should almost never lag. As it turns out all of its lagging issues are easily addressed with patches from its homebrew community to disable logging and make a few other adjustment. Once thats done its a MUCH IMPROVED experience, HP just needs to make their product work that way out of the box.

Apps
No one can currently compete with iOS app advantage and until a device gets a foothold developers wont develop for it so its a double edged sword that makes it tougher and tougher for a new platform to take root. WebOS does have more TABLET apps than Android though and the numbers growing.

Price
The Touchpad came out at a $499 (16gb) / $599 (32gb) price point just like the iPad. Obviously its not an equal value, but HP routinely prices high and discounts with all their products. Prices are already down to $399 / $499 and there are $50 discounts off that right now. At $349 the touchpad isn't that bad a deal.


Strengths down the road.
HP has announced they are putting WebOS as an instant on option on their PCs and printers so in time there will be alot of WebOS devices out there by default at which point they might pick up a critical mass of developer support.

I picked up my touchpad at Costco so have a while before making my final decision on it, but right now about 90% of my tablet development work is on the touchpad then i Port/Test for iOS and Android. The touchpad dev setup is just more my style.
 
$399 for an HP tablet... or spend $100 more and get the coolest and latest greatest gadget that everyone wants.

No Brainer.
 
Alchemist42 said:
There is no denying that iOS is the 500 pould gorilla of tablets, apple is enjoying much the same success with the iphone and ipad as Microsoft did with windows. So apples not in any danger whatsoever from the current crop of tablets.

That said, IMO WebOS is the by far my favorite of the competition, and from a developers perspective is an infinitely more comfortable environment than iOS. I develop and have a touchpad, ipad, ipad2 and honeycomb tablet so improbably a bit over exposed lol. My iPad2 is my daily driver but with a few small changes that could easily change to the Touchpad.

The touchpads problems...

Casing / Size
While i like the iPad like size and screen aspect ratio better than honeycomb wide screen devices the touchpad is too thick and a major fingerprint magnet. HP has a fondness for piano black gloss plastics that they really need to get over IMO.

OS
The OS is actually really good, does multi-tasking app switching so much smoother than iOS and its 'fun' to play with. But it lags, and a tablet should almost never lag. As it turns out all of its lagging issues are easily addressed with patches from its homebrew community to disable logging and make a few other adjustment. Once thats done its a MUCH IMPROVED experience, HP just needs to make their product work that way out of the box.

Apps
No one can currently compete with iOS app advantage and until a device gets a foothold developers wont develop for it so its a double edged sword that makes it tougher and tougher for a new platform to take root. WebOS does have more TABLET apps than Android though and the numbers growing.

Price
The Touchpad came out at a $499 (16gb) / $599 (32gb) price point just like the iPad. Obviously its not an equal value, but HP routinely prices high and discounts with all their products. Prices are already down to $399 / $499 and there are $50 discounts off that right now. At $349 the touchpad isn't that bad a deal.


Strengths down the road.
HP has announced they are putting WebOS as an instant on option on their PCs and printers so in time there will be alot of WebOS devices out there by default at which point they might pick up a critical mass of developer support.

I picked up my touchpad at Costco so have a while before making my final decision on it, but right now about 90% of my tablet development work is on the touchpad then i Port/Test for iOS and Android. The touchpad dev setup is just more my style.
Click to expand...

Actually The Android Tablets and Web Os tablets have near the same amount of apps with Android having more. The thing with Android is Like Ios most of the apps are cross compatible with a phone/tablet mode. Web OS lacks that with the Phone apps not having a tablet mode and not rendering the phone app well. Android also has more Tablet versions of the High Profile apps.
 
Partly I imagine the devices aren't selling because they aren't as good as the iPad in some ways. But I can't help wondering if there's just a big Apple cool factor in play with the iPad's popularity. Still a tablet skeptic, I guess.
 
A big reason why iPad dominates

I think that in addition to the size of iPad's app library, a big reason why the iPad is so popular compared to other tablet platforms such as Android and Touchpad is because once a customer is in the Apple ecosystem, it's much harder to switch. Once a user has invested several hundred dollars in buying apps, he/she is less likely to switch. It is interesting to note that most apps in the Apple store are paid, while most apps in the Android store are free (at least the ones people are getting). Hence, it is easier to go from Android to Apple (as I have done) than vice versa.

I think there are several factors at work: price, perceived quality, and the "ecosystem" factor I described above. People were choosing iPad over the others because the pricing was better (that's a major reason why I got an iPad 2 instead of a G-Slate). Also, iPad has a track record of working well vs. the early reports of less-than-stellar performance with the other brands. The app library for iPad is stupendous. Finally, once a customer is invested in Apple, it's harder to leave and re-buy all the apps for the new platform (assuming they are even available).
 
I'd like to see someone come out with a full featured tablet that also has:

1) An IR transceiver so it can have a universal remote control. That alone would put it on many people's must-buy list.

2) Optional game controls.

And see how well it sells.

(Similar has been attempted before, but without today's processors, apps and browsers.)
 
Alchemist42 said:
There is no denying that iOS is the 500 pould gorilla of tablets, apple is enjoying much the same success with the iphone and ipad as Microsoft did with windows. So apples not in any danger whatsoever from the current crop of tablets.

That said, IMO WebOS is the by far my favorite of the competition, and from a developers perspective is an infinitely more comfortable environment than iOS. I develop and have a touchpad, ipad, ipad2 and honeycomb tablet so improbably a bit over exposed lol. My iPad2 is my daily driver but with a few small changes that could easily change to the Touchpad.
Click to expand...

Nice review...

HP TouchPad is definitely the iPad Killer. :eek:

Too bad for HP the iPad 2 has already been out for a while... ;)
 
Does everyone really believe that Best Buy got roughly 150 TouchPads per store's worth of stock?
 
I like the UI but to compete with the ipad 2 HP and others are just going to have to step up their game like they know what they are doing. Or they will continue to just get the Apple hatters buying their stuff (ROFL poor suckers) price is not the issue but performance and functionality has to be years ahead.
 
Not to state the obvious, but its not the superiority of the iPad or the inferiority of any other tablet. Its the iTunes store that wins it for Apple.
 
Forget Best Buy, it's worse for Costco.

Costco retaliated against Apple by refusing to carry their products entirely. Now they're the only wholesaler that HAS to stock clones like the Touchpad to get a piece of the tablet market. Except few people want them, even if they offer a spot discount.

Great way to make things hard for yourself
 
diamond.g said:
Does everyone really believe that Best Buy got roughly 150 TouchPads per store's worth of stock?
Click to expand...

I believe that most of those TouchPads are just sitting inside a main warehouse somewhere waiting to be shipped to local BB locations as needed.
 
kdarling said:
I'd like to see someone come out with a full featured tablet that also has:

1) An IR transceiver so it can have a universal remote control. That alone would put it on many people's must-buy list.

2) Optional game controls.

And see how well it sells.

(Similar has been attempted before, but without today's processors, apps and browsers.)
Click to expand...

IR? really oh please take that tech out for ever. IOS5 and airplay is all I want. Airplay has mad my life so much better can't wait till its everywhere.
 
MacTheSpoon said:
Partly I imagine the devices aren't selling because they aren't as good as the iPad in some ways. But I can't help wondering if there's just a big Apple cool factor in play with the iPad's popularity. Still a tablet skeptic, I guess.
Click to expand...

People can no longer afford to get something just because its cool or the latest thing. The "it" factor may prompt people to try it, but only the best and most useful get kept and not returned. And right now, that's iPad.
 
diamond.g said:
Does everyone really believe that Best Buy got roughly 150 TouchPads per store's worth of stock?
Click to expand...

Canada's best buy is showing out of stock for the 16GB and 33 back order stock only and plain out of stock for the 32GB model. That's online, so country wide...

Something sounds fishy in this story, I doubt the stock numbers are as high as they claim and that the sell through is that low.

If Canada had had the 100$ coupon + 100$ instant rebate at Staples on the TouchPad last weekend, I'd probably own one right now. Too bad that coupon was US only.
 
Liquorpuki said:
Forget Best Buy, it's worse for Costco.

Costco retaliated against Apple by refusing to carry their products entirely. Now they're the only wholesaler that HAS to stock clones like the Touchpad to get a piece of the tablet market. Except few people want them, even if they offer a spot discount.

Great way to make things hard for yourself
Click to expand...

Wrong, try again. They wanted more products and Apple said no, which is way different.

Stop making it up as you go alone http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374135,00.asp
your not Governor Perry.
 
Ha ha

jonnysods said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A5288d)

Know what I miss?

Hardware speculation rumors. I don't see a lot of those anymore, this is becoming a news site.

Where are the wild guesses??? :)
Click to expand...

lol...

I think I might be the only one that got that :rolleyes:
 
no other tablet will sell. tablet market is a whole different ballgame then the phone market. Android is subsidized so much which has made it take off. most people i know that have androids say they got them because they were cheaper then the iphone. sure there are android diehards but very few of them are buying android phones that are $199+ on verizon or att where they can get the iphone. most are getting them for cheaper or on sprint where there is no iphone.

If you look at googles other attempts lots of failures. Tablets.....no go. Google tv....no go. Don't even get me started on WebOS. The pre sucked and HP will do absolutely nothing to expand on it. It had a cool notification system thats about it everything else about it is terrible. So why would anyone buy a web os product over an iOS or android product where there are MANY more apps and much more support available.
 
bchreng said:
I believe that most of those TouchPads are just sitting inside a main warehouse somewhere waiting to be shipped to local BB locations as needed.
Click to expand...

point still stands. Given their number of stores, it seems a bit sketchy that they ordered enough to sell 150 per store...

----------
jonnysods said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A5288d)

Know what I miss?

Hardware speculation rumors. I don't see a lot of those anymore, this is becoming a news site.

Where are the wild guesses??? :)
Click to expand...

Could always revert back to the MOSR days...ewww
 
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