Is a Touchpad adequate for parents (web/email/youtube/skype?)

[zub3qin]

My parents are finally comfortable playing on my iPad.
Now with the fire sale on HP TouchPads (some are saying $100), is it worthwhile to buy one if all my parents need is web, email, youtube?

Can you stream live video from Cnn.com, etc?

Or is the device dead and not worth buying--

 

[Apple...]

Um, I'm not sure you can still find one for that price.

 

[Jman13]

Um, I'm not sure you can still find one for that price.

You can if you're lucky, but they are selling out FAST. I went to BestBuy this morning and there were 10 of us in line when they opened. Unfortunately, BB has sent all of theirs back to HP. I went to HH Gregg and got a 32GB for $149 (the 16 GB are $99), but the 16GB had been bought literally 5 minutes before, when a guy came in and bought 4...two 16GB and two 32GB.

 

[MRU]

So annoying, they are still €400 + over here. Not sure why Europe is getting screwed?

 

[bufffilm]

the US HP site is showing the new markdowns - $100 and $150 for the 16gb and 32gb versions respectively so those who can order and are interested, can have at it.

i flirted with the notion of picking one up since i am gadget geek and with the notion that if the Touchpad offers easy connectivity to external storage, it would be somewhat useful in a different way than my ipad2, but after rereading all the reviews [yet again], the low price is still not an attractive enough incentive. i'd rather just save the money and put it towards a future ipad3 or other tablet purchase.

those that don't have a tablet and plan to use it in a very basic manner - ebook reader, email, simple internet browsing - the touchpad would be adequate. i might buy the touchpad over say, a nook color right now since it's half the price with 2X the storage and the nook color's future is not certain either.

the questionable lack of support that HP will offer in the way of firmware updates makes the tablet of somewhat dubious value after a year or so. still, it's tempting to pick one up as a movie and book reader for around the house for $100 bux. would likely save having to recharge my ipad a bit.

i have some time to kill this afternoon...i'm going to head over to a touchpad forum and read up a little. still might bite.

[edit] wow, they're sold out now. when i was on their site a couple of hours ago, you could still buy one.

 

[joepunk]

the US HP site is showing the new markdowns - $100 and $150 for the 16gb and 32gb versions respectively so those who can order and are interested, can have at it.

i flirted with the notion of picking one up since i am gadget geek and with the notion that if the Touchpad offers easy connectivity to external storage, it would be somewhat useful in a different way than my ipad2, but after rereading all the reviews [yet again], the low price is still not an attractive enough incentive. i'd rather just save the money and put it towards a future ipad3 or other tablet purchase.

those that don't have a tablet and plan to use it in a very basic manner - ebook reader, email, simple internet browsing - the touchpad would be adequate. i might buy the touchpad over say, a nook color right now since it's half the price with 2X the storage and the nook color's future is not certain either.

the questionable lack of support that HP will offer in the way of firmware updates makes the tablet of somewhat dubious value after a year or so. still, it's tempting to pick one up as a movie and book reader for around the house for $100 bux. would likely save having to recharge my ipad a bit.

i have some time to kill this afternoon...i'm going to head over to a touchpad forum and read up a little. still might bite.

[edit] wow, they're sold out now. when i was on their site a couple of hours ago, you could still buy one.

Sums up my thoughts on to buy or not to buy. If I did buy I would probably use it as e-reader for ebooks from Project Gutenberg site. And I too was just checking the HP site and now they are sold out. Cross my fingers that no one in my city has invaded Staples stock pile just yet.

 

[byke]

I dont understand .... according to news reports the other day, one of the large retailers had sold approx. 10% of 270 000 units they had in stock. And this was part of the reason for HP pulling the plug.

Now, if there is a 100 dollar HP tablet floating around .... does anyone really believe these have sold out at so many retailers? that would mean best buy had sold approx. 125 000 today alone (50% of 270 000 - aka the 16gb model) .... i really dont believe that.

 

[Apple...]

if there is a 100 dollar HP tablet floating around .... does anyone really believe these have sold out at so many retailers? that would mean best buy had sold approx. 125 000 today alone (50% of 270 000 - aka the 16gb model) .... i really dont believe that.

I don't believe it either, which is why I'm still hoping and refreshing this page constantly.

 

[aneftp]

I dont understand .... according to news reports the other day, one of the large retailers had sold approx. 10% of 270 000 units they had in stock. And this was part of the reason for HP pulling the plug.

Now, if there is a 100 dollar HP tablet floating around .... does anyone really believe these have sold out at so many retailers? that would mean best buy had sold approx. 125 000 today alone (50% of 270 000 - aka the 16gb model) .... i really dont believe that.

No. What happened is Best Buy and some other like wholesale retailer like Costco just decided to force HP to buy back all their unsold unopened units. Some retailer just want to wash their hands off the the HP TouchPad altogether. It's much easier for Best Buy just to return their remaining 200k unsold units than to try to deal with people buying the TouchPad amd opening them and returning them 14 days later.

Best Buy is offering to refund fully anyone who purchased a TouchPad even outside the 14 day return policy including all accessories. So Best Buy surprisingly is being the "good guy" here to early adopters.

 

[Carlanga]

I bought one today and won't recommend it for parental units unless they want to learn the OS. Is not as simple/intuituve to use as iOS. I would say it falls down between iOS & Android w/ it being closer to Android for the experience. For parents you can get an old iPad 1 as a better recommendation for them It does have flash though!

 

[nissan.gtp]

if I can get one for $99, I'm going to jump in it