HP TouchPad Accessories Begin to Arrive at Retail

First of all, HP will offer ONLY the 32Gb TouchPad SKU at retail (at least initially), which will likely be the first of several fatal blows to its fortunes. The "average Joes" that are buying these things likely see ONE price and turn away. Everyone I know, hillbilly or CEO, who owns a tablet has always always bought one of the cheaper SKUs. I know ONE guy with a 32Gb 3G iPad 2. Everyone else I know has a 16Gb version. And the two people I know with Honeycomb tablets bought wi-fi only versions of the lowest available memory config.

HP is making almost the same exact mistake as Moto did with the Xoom launch. You NEVER launch your most expensive SKU first. You launch several different models and undercut Apple by $50-$100 across the board. I will wager that the TouchPad's BoM is no higher than the Asus Touchpad. Does WebOS really add that much cost to the device? $399 is the new standard for quality, name-brand 10.1" Android tablets. The 10" Touchpad SHOULD be ringing in at $399, $499, and $599, respectively.

Anyway, Gekko, a couple different scenarios to answer your question:

#1 Wal-Mart is sold out of iPads

#2 The bumpkin wants a black tablet and Wal-Mart has only white iPads

#3 The bumpkin wants only a 32Gb device and Wal-Mart is sold out of 32Gb iPads (and likely 16Gb ones too)

#4 HP is running some kind of special where you get a free or discounted Touchpad with purchase of an HP PC.
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Doesn't matter if the touchpad is the same (or $100) less than a comparable ipad.

Let's see what the incentive is to purchase one over an ipad 2?

1. Flash! Uh, uh, I prefer excellent battery life.

2. Touchpad has real multitasking - for 95% of the people out there, Apple's current task switching paradigm appears to be fine.

3. The lack of apps?

4. The 3rd. rate ecosystem?

proprietary = same company makes both hardware and software (not Android).

lonely, tiny island = nobody else is buying (not Apple or Android).

No, WebOS does not have USB host capabilities at this time.

Furthermore, I do not know of any SD card readers that utilize a microUSB port. That's why more and more Android tablets are shipping with fullsize USB ports so the user can utilize various thumbdrives, card readers, external HID devices and even a portable HDDs if the port can supply enough juice.

Of course HP went the Apple route:

-It costs less (in both hardware & software engineering resources). Despite Palm being an early pioneer of thee SD/MMC standard, removable storage has been missing since day 1 of WebOS and I see no sign of this changing in the future.
-It's hipper/cooler/trendier to not have a memory card slot
-It's more "secure" as far as coprorate IT is concerned
-It forces users to go the Apple route of having to buy new hardware if they need more storage, thus more sales in theory for HP
-It appeases HP's carrier partners (in an eventual WWAN TouchPad or a wi-fi TouchPad tethered to a hotspot or smartphone) by forcing users to keep more in the cloud, thus incurring more data charges since everyone is moving to tiered data.
-HP feels it will give users more incentive to go with their forthcoming cloud music program.

Toshiba is really the ONLY company going after the tablet market properly and treating them as scaled-down netbooks: the Thrive has a fullsize SDHC/SDXC slot that lets you add gobs of storage, a removable battery for high-capacity or replacement down the road, and fullsize USB port for attaching external devices. THAT is the way to do a proper tablet IMHO!
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WSJ: You've been back as CEO for four years now. What has surprised you the most about the evolution of the tech industry in that time?

Mr. Dell: I'd say [the] rapid rise of the tablet. I didn't completely see that coming.

Tablets aren't really new, in the sense that the tablet PC idea's been around for a while. Obviously, more recent products have been much more successful.

What's interesting [is that] business users are not going to give up smartphones. Won't give up PCs. So now you have a PC, you have a smartphone and you have a tablet. Sounds pretty good. Industry growth.

What's also interesting is Apple's great success with the iPhone. Android comes along, even greater success. I think you'll see the same thing on tablets, with enormous numbers of Android tablets with Dell certainly playing a role in that as well.

WSJ: Do you think Android tablets will outpace iPads moving forward?

Mr. Dell: Not tomorrow. Not the next day. But again, if you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, "What is that?" And now there are more Android phones than iPhones. I don't see any reason why the same won't occur with Android tablets.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703907004576279160412494024.html

yeah yeah yeah fanboy. everyone is familiar with that quote.

never fall in love with a company (or a stock).

COVER STORY June 22, 2011, 11:01PM EST text size: TT
The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace
It once promised to redefine music, politics, dating, and pop culture. Rupert Murdoch fell in love with it. Then everything fell apart

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_27/b4235053917570.htm

I think it's safe to say the Playbook has bombed spectacularly. HP's TP is almost certain to outsell the Playbook.

If nothing else, the TouchPad at least touts a bigger screen (strangely the preference for so many users) and a dual-core CPU and a far more comprehensive selection of bundled apps and standalone functionality.
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