HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1 • Hacker News Board

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#41

Post by jmelloy » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #37

desigooner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the fact about Apple's buying power. But when someone is trying to compete with an established product, you gotta offer something more at some price less to get people to even look at it! It's going to be interesting to see how the HP Touchpad & Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 do in the next few months. However, the real competition will start when Amazon jumps into the market with their rumored Kal-El tablets l…

Nope, it's not possible to offer more for less. Apple is a "good" monopoly, that passes their saving onto customers. The only way to beat them is to attack from below. Make a tablet that is only good for browsing the web. Maybe add a few cheap features like a camera and GPS, but skimp on expensive features like storage. If you really want to be cool, add some kind of console controls, so teenagers can play games. May…

I think you're describing the Nook Color and/or Nook.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#42

Post by tsieling » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:15 PM UTC

desigooner wrote: post #13

marklabedz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle I agree, however, much has been made of Apple's buying power when it comes to key components (displays, solid state storage, etc). Apple may well have the lowest actual component cost.

I understand the fact about Apple's buying power. But when someone is trying to compete with an established product, you gotta offer something more at some price less to get people to even look at it! It's going to be interesting to see how the HP Touchpad & Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 do in the next few months. However, the real competition will start when Amazon jumps into the market with their rumored Kal-El tablets l…

>When trying to compete with an established product you gotta offering something more at some price less...

Like the iPhone and it's $600 starting price?

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#43

Post by jimmyk » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

glhaynes wrote: post #25

Killah911 wrote: post #21

"Touch to Share capability for sharing web addresses between HP TouchPad and compatible webOS phones" I'm sure all 5 people who still have the palm pre can barely contain their excitement... Seriously, what's HP thinking? I think the Palm Pre came out with more fanfare, and that didn't turn out that great. If all that really differrentiates HP's tablet from the iPad is the OS, well, quite frankly, it's been done befo…

Yeah... I want to see webOS do well, but making one of your main differentiators be tight integration with a product that essentially nobody owns isn't normally the route to success.

It's not compatible with the original Pre or Pixi. It's compatible with the veer, which just came out, and the pre3, which doesn't even have a release date yet. It might be compatible with updated versions of the Pre2 but I don't think they're banking on people buying those.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#44

Post by gregstoll » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:34 PM UTC

6ren wrote: post #29

It's a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU APQ8060 1.2GHz But they don't mention RAM or cpu. It runs flash, but doesn't mention java (so it probably doesn't).

I believe the spec is 1GB of RAM.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#45

Post by piranha » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

6ren wrote: post #29

It's a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU APQ8060 1.2GHz But they don't mention RAM or cpu. It runs flash, but doesn't mention java (so it probably doesn't).

> But they don't mention RAM or cpu.

How's saying that it's 1.2 ghz cpu is not mentioning cpu? As for RAM, Wikipedia page says it'll have 1 gb.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#46

Post by smackfu » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:39 PM UTC

modernerd wrote: post #26

d3fun wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. Must be registered for and present at the event to be eligible. 4. Must be able to show your app in progress to a designated HP webOS representative, in the form of an .ipk file we can load onto and test with an HP TouchPad.

"You can also email us at TouchPadSDK [att] palm [dott] com and one of our app specialists will work with you to see how you can qualify for this program."

They need to think about what the word "must" means.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#47

Post by smackfu » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:41 PM UTC

martingordon wrote: post #14

desigooner wrote: post #10

I still fail to understand on why companies prefer to price their products at the same level as iPad?! Spec for spec, there are not many things that put HP TouchPad to an advantage. No extendable memory, no extra ports, a weak app ecosystem, etc. Ever since the ASUS Transformer was released at 399$ for a 16GB model, that pretty much became the price to beat for a tablet which wanted to compete with the iPad2

I was going to post a snarky comment about how the Transformer can't compete with the iPad because its not actually shipping yet, blah blah, but I did a search first and found out that it shipped over a month ago. Which can only mean that ASUS really botched the PR on this one. Neither Engadget nor Gizmodo (arguably the two largest gadget sites) have reviewed it, but the few reviews I did find were generally positive…

I have heard a lot of actual talk on tech forums about the Transformer and people trying to find it and excited to buy it. Way more than the other tablets.

I wonder if Asus just didn't send review units to Engadget and Gizmodo. OTOH, isn't the press supposed to be covering things on their own??

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#48

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:58 PM UTC

mrkurt wrote: post #16

desigooner wrote: post #10

I still fail to understand on why companies prefer to price their products at the same level as iPad?! Spec for spec, there are not many things that put HP TouchPad to an advantage. No extendable memory, no extra ports, a weak app ecosystem, etc. Ever since the ASUS Transformer was released at 399$ for a 16GB model, that pretty much became the price to beat for a tablet which wanted to compete with the iPad2

Pricing is also signaling, so you have to be careful undercutting someone if your story is "we have a better product". If the TouchPad is destined for failure, undercutting Apple isn't going to prevent that. The market's already said "$499 is good for a tablet" so it's smart of them to listen to that.

[deleted]

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#49

Post by patrickod » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:59 PM UTC

One of the cooler things about WebOS when I was using a 1st generation Pre was the large community of jailbreakers and the mods and apps that they produced. Given some of the cool things they made possible on the Pre I'm really interested to see what they'll do with the TouchPad. Here's hoping it's a success, I really liked WebOS.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#50

Post by mgkimsal » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 6:00 PM UTC

marklabedz wrote: post #12

desigooner wrote: post #10

I still fail to understand on why companies prefer to price their products at the same level as iPad?! Spec for spec, there are not many things that put HP TouchPad to an advantage. No extendable memory, no extra ports, a weak app ecosystem, etc. Ever since the ASUS Transformer was released at 399$ for a 16GB model, that pretty much became the price to beat for a tablet which wanted to compete with the iPad2

In principle I agree, however, much has been made of Apple's buying power when it comes to key components (displays, solid state storage, etc). Apple may well have the lowest actual component cost.

Could HP not just sell below cost for a while to grab some market share? Instead of $100 million in marketing, drop the price by $100 and sell a million devices. It's a more direct benefit.