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you think there is a meaningful portion of people who are buying the touchpad for a reason other than the price, en? I'd say of course not.
whose saying HP wanted to sell it this cheap? I have no idea where you're coming up with this. They wanted to compete with the iPad obviously but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't.Why would HP build a tablet that cost them $300+ to put together if they planned to sell it for $100 all along? Why would they invest that kind of money if they weren't competing with the $500 tablets?
Sorry Manny, I disagree that what was a valid comparison 2 weeks ago isn't valid now.
you think there is a meaningful portion of people who are buying the touchpad for a reason other than the price, en? I'd say of course not.
So you're basically agreeing with the post
IIRC, the post said that this was crap compared to an iPad. You're saying you can't compare it because the iPad isn't $100. But the TP didn't cost $100 to make, nor it was sold initially at $100. It costs a lot more.
The reason you bought it at $100 is that people compared and didn't buy it.
The $100 value is simply a reminder how crappy it is compared to other tablets.
No. That's not what I'm saying at all.
IOW, HP thought they could compete and priced accordingly. Then they realized that they couldn't, pulled the plug on it and sold the stock at a loss. Don't know why you would be able to compare them before and not now.
who cares what it cost to make? Definitely not a factor in my decision to buy it. Do you decide to buy something based on how much it cost too make or by how much it costs you?
Yes people compared it to the iPad and decided not to buy it but that was at 500 bdollars. Drop it to 100 and its in a class of its own.
really? How about the 400 price difference? Don't know about you but price is a fairly important factor in my buying decisions.
The only 'class on its own' that it is, is that you can probably resell it for over $100. Technically speaking (which what the comparison was about), the pricing is irrelevant.
IE: That the touch detection is crap compared to other tablets applies just as equally when it was $500 or $100.
The comparison was on technical aspects. Your argument is that now technical comparisons shouldn't be made because NOW there's a $400 price difference (which is more like $300, but I digress).
The hardware/software didn't change. The comparison is still just as valid.
the class of its own has to do with no tablet at 100 being this good. Hasn't everyone here acknowledged the iPad is better? Who's is saying otherwise? You can compare it technically all you want but that's not what matters to consumers with a 500% price difference. How on earth can the most important factor in a decision, price, be irrelevant? Why would it be a technical comparison when brought up price?
Oh, and the cost part matters, IMO, in the sense that if you're going to compare including pricing, the TP isn't a $100 tablet, even if it's being sold at that price. It's a $300+ tablet.
It's *great* for consumers that they can get one in the fire sale, but that doesn't change the fact that's a one time event, and the tablet is obviously a much more expensive device.
my point is that the technical superiority doesn't matter in the face of the price drop. The last weeks actions pretty much back that up. No one has disputed at any point the iPad is superior technically. No one.
it is a 100 dollar tablet. I have the receipt to prove it. Lol. All that matters to the consumer is what they pay.
But there isn't going to be another tablet for $100 that is that good (at least in the foreseeable future). It's a $300+ tablet. I can't think there's many companies in the business of making $300+ tablets and sell them at $100. And any that are in that market ain't lasting long.
It's no 'class' at all because after this stock is gone, it's gone.
Consumers can't buy that tablet anymore. There won't be another Touchpad for $100. It's great you have yours. This isn't 'a class of it's own', it's a 'one time fire sale'.
Well now you've just switched to arguing semantics. None of which I even disagree with. If you don't think its in a class of its own, cool.
You know one take away from this is that tablets will likely have to be priced lower in the future (outside of Apple) because of this sale. So while I don't disagree with what you just said on a fundamental level, I think there is a sizeable chance that the consumer's perception of tablet cost has been changed for the long haul.
IMO, that's a $300+ tablet, which is actually more expensive than an iPad to make (iPad BOM is $259), and it's seriously lacking.
And the point isn't that people agree that the iPad is superior. The point is that now that the firesale came and went, people are not supposed to be comparing the tablet to an iPad.
I think the comparison is valid. I think it was valid 2 weeks ago, and it's valid now. That's all. If you don't agree, well, then I agree to disagree.
Maybe. I actually think this tablet proved that just putting the right components doesn't make a tablet. The whole software experience that comes with it is just as important if not more. This was a big bust for HP.
I've no doubt that prices will come down, but I also think it will happen for all companies as they compete.
Oh I agree its valid from a technical perspective but that was never my point. If it wasn't I wouldn't have brought price into the equation. You can compare ANYTHING on technical merits but thats not what consumers take into consideration.
We're arguing past each other because we're both making different points and I don't think either one of us actually disagrees on the points either of us is making.
For the record though, I don't think the touchpad is a bad tablet based on hardware. Its a really ty OS and software package. The hardware is great and I think thats proven based on the modifications that people have made to it already. I think if ICS is able to run on this tablet it is going to be great and it will have a much larger app catalog to run with at that time.
Yeah exactly. There's no doubt that the software is of utmost importance on them because there's really no way a sizeable hardware advantadge (if you could even get one) to manifest itself without good software to take advantadge of said hardware.
The tablet hardware is substantially better than the iPad 1. Not sure about the iPad 2, but it might be comparable. That should tell you all you need to know how badly HP botched this, and how software and the experience between hardware/software make a huge deal.
I'd really like to know how much this firesale cost HP, tbh. There were seemingly a lot of units left, and they lost between $200-150 per unit on the price alone, without counting how much they spent on software dev and marketing. Ouch.
"not a class of it's own"
"one time event"
The fact that it's a one time event pretty much makes it a class of it's own.
tbh, I took the 'class of it's own' to mean 'the new sub $200 tablet market' class type of thing. Manny can correct me if I misunderstood.
Its pretty obvious to me by how fast they went they even ed up the firesale. They could have sold them at 2x the cost and still sold them all but at a slower rate. I wouldn't have bought one at 200 but considering how fast they went I have no doubts that people would have gotten into them at that price.
The problem for HP is that coming in at this stage of the tablet game with such an expensive tablet you can't just stick it out there and feel your way out and then give up on it so fast. I don't know if it was smart for them to cut bait and run so quickly but at the same time I do feel as though WebOS is pretty ing terrible. Its not even on par with early incarnations of Android, IMO, so I can see how its going to be such an uphill climb. But they seem keen on pushing through WebOS in some shape or form so I'm not sure what the deal is. Just seems to be a really bad strategy all around from upstairs regardig the handling of this sitaution from start to finish.
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