HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
Summary: The HP TouchPad just got $100 cheaper.
HP has slashed the price of the TouchPad so that the budget model is now cheaper that the budget iPad.
And it's a hefty price cut of $100.
The $100 price cut sees the 16GB Wi-Fi TouchPad go from $499 to $399, with the 32GB WiFi model now at $499. Compare this to the iPad, where the 16GB WiFi model is at the original price of $499.
According to HP senior vice president Stephen DiFranco the reason for the price cut is that HP was 'pleased with customer response' to a $100 instant-savings promotion that it had recently run.
My guess here is that HP is looking to boost sales rather than profit in order to make the platform more attractive to developers - more developers means more apps, which might lead to more interest from the buying public. Apps are what's missing on the TouchPad's webOS platform, and without buoyant sales, developers are likely to stay away, which is bad for the app ecosystem.
I still think that the iPad is the best tablet out there, but the TouchPad is now fast becoming a worthy rival. If you're not a fan of Apple, then you might want to take a look at it.
That said, a TouchPad price drop is unlikely to affect iPad sales that much ... boost in TouchPad sales is likely to come at the expense of Android sales.
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Talkback
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
Take what, iPad?
"That said, a TouchPad price drop is unlikely to affect iPad sales that much ? boost in TouchPad sales is likely to come at the expense of Android sales."
I agree. This will not affect Apple at all. Not one bit. This will do 2 things:
1. Knock HP out of the tablet market after sustaining 2 years of losses.
2. Knock others out of the tablet market while they try to compete with HP on price.
End result? Less competition. Not good for consumers. This is a sick market from a competition viewpoint. From profit share to marketshare, all indications are that this market is not effective. When one company dominates a market so thoroughly, consumers suffer. No other market is like this.
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
All pads are over priced for what they offer. You're buying a large media device that does far less than a laptop. You're buying the cool factor and thats about it...At some point these are going to get good but thats a few years aways. I see mostly praise for apple but i beleive a lot of that is ZDNET bias towards Apple everything. I'm on hold to see what Windows 8 can do. it think its going to usher in a superior OS for tablets, phones and pcs.
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
Windows 8 on a phone = crash in the pan...not one windows mobile phone has taken grip after the lousy experiences people had with them in 2008-2009.
I can only imagine a tablet that needs to be rebooted after every app is used.
Not if people buy it:)
Pagan jim
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
Java is the number one programming language.
Can u programm in Java for WebOS ?
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
Maybe this isn't a good idea after all
HP is one of the Deep Pockets that can eat a loss on these things for a couple of years to see if they can make a business out of this. But not everyone can do that. In particular, Motorola probably can't: they are already fighting for their lives in the handset market and don't really need a money-losing distraction. Same for RIM. Samsung can afford to be patient, but Acer, Asus, and HTC might have more trouble.
My guess? This move by HP causes at least two, and probably four, of the existing tablet wannabes to drop out.
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
What is their profit margin now?
I also just read that Wal-Mart shut down their music store stating that they simply could not compete with iTunes. Another One Bites The Dust. The markets that Apple competes in are getting sicker and sicker by the day and much of it has to do with Apple's iTunes ecosystem. No one can compete with it and unfortunately, no one can compete *PROFITABLY* in any of the markets that iTunes touches like the MP3 player market, the smartphone market, and the tablet market. Yes, there are competitors in each of these markets. No, none of them make any profit. Sick sick markets and consumers lose.
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
We could all have a very long discussion on the subject of whether consumers "win" when cutthroat competition drives prices down to the point that progress slows to a crawl. Aside from some feeds and speeds, what real new functionality exists in a quad-core Windows 7 machine that wasn't in Windows 3.1 on a 386? Point and click. Same old Same Old.
2001 came and went; where was Hal 9000? Where is any real, serious breakthrough? How do consumers benefit when a technology as promising as microelectronics gets driven into a rut that it doesn't escape for thirty years?
Apple is shaking things up. They're causing people to have to think instead of turning the crank one more time on the Same Old Stuff. I say good for them.
It would be a very short discussion
"We could all have a very long discussion on the subject of whether consumers "win" when cutthroat competition drives prices down to the point that progress slows to a crawl."
It would be a short discussion because I agree totally with you. In fact, I even tried to highlight the word *PROFITABLY* in my post, not sure how that could have been missed.
My argument since the very beginning has been that competition for the sake of competition does not benefit consumers and if I'm reading your post correctly, we are both 100% in agreement on that. People like to point out that competitors do exist in the smartphone and tablet market and that is technically true. However, consumers do not benefit from competitors that are losing money on every unit they sell while 1 company rakes in 90%+ of all the profits. Consumers only benefit when there are several healthy, profitable competitors in a market. No one can objectively look at the smartphone and tablet markets and say that there are several healthy competitors in those markets. There aren't.
At no point am I blaming Apple for any of this. Apple is doing what it must to maximize its profits and it has a duty to act as anti-competitively as it legally can. That involves suing others out of the market and not licensing access to its iTunes ecosystem. That's fine and I congratulate Apple on becoming the biggest company in the world and on doing everything it can to remain so.
That being said, sick markets are not good for consumers. Consumers would benefit if there were several healthy, profitable competitors in the smartphone and tablet markets (and MP3 player market although that one is becoming irrelevant). I'm quite surprised that any of what I'm saying is the least bit controversial.
RE: HP TouchPad now cheaper than the iPad
Yes, Apple is choking others out of the market