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HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

blog.palm.com

61–70 of 95 posts

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#61

Well it looks like they have already done something better than all their non-Apple competitors - instead of rushing it out half finished they seem to have waited until it's done. Given the biggest complaint about webos on the phone was the power of the processor this stands a good chance of being a nice product. fingers crossed for them (I'm unlikely to give up my iPad given iCloud now but there really should be a d…

The 500MHz processor in the original Pre really does hold back WebOS. Running an overclocked custom kernel, I have mine set at 1GHz, makes a huge difference to the usability and surprisingly doesn't reduce battery life by much (which is partly due to the custom kernels clocking the CPU back to 500MHz when the screen is off). It looks like HP/Palm have learned from this and aren't going to make the same mistake twice,…

As I was completely unaware of overclocking in WebOS and specifically for the original Pre (which I have), I'll save the user the bit of googling I did to find overclocking. I had no idea it was this easy in preware:

http://www.precentral.net/why-i-overclock-my-palm-pre-its-ea...

So now I have my distraction for the next half-hour while I play with the overclocking options and test the responsiveness.

So thank you for mentioning that. +1 to you!

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#62

"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…

I enjoyed reading your comment from my pre, while sitting in the park on a nice day. I agree that the fanfare over gee-whiz features is just hype. What should interest you is the potential, though unlikely emergence of another serious competitor. As with copy/paste, multitasking, notifications, and over-the-air updates, having competitors that show that Apple is not the only place great ideas come from can only be good for us all.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not as easy as you'd think to sell a $399 tablet with no marketing budget. See: The surprise in this thread being expressed that Asus' tablet has been available for sale for months.

However, Asus' tablet is either out of stock or sells out very quickly, so one could argue that there's not much need for marketing from that standpoint.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not as easy as you'd think to sell a $399 tablet with no marketing budget. See: The surprise in this thread being expressed that Asus' tablet has been available for sale for months.

It's not necessarily all or nothing.

Certainly they've already spent quite a lot - trade shows, etc - and have the geek faithful aware of the tablet already. It'd be much easier for me to evangelize this at a lower price point.

A $299 price point would rock. "Correct, it doesn't do as much as an iPad, but it's also not as expensive."

This notion that "the market says $499 price points are what tablets should be priced at" is stupid. $499 is what iPads will sell at - no one else has yet demonstrated that a $499 is viable for any other tablet than the iPad. I will say it's foolish to keep trying this late in the game. If a company as big as HP isn't willing to do what it takes to get these in to peoples' hands (which may include selling below cost), there's little hope this will be a viable competitor.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#66
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, the touch to share functionality is based on some form of near field communications. I don't think the Pre2 has the hardware. The Veer (with a software update) and Pre3 are supposed to support it.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#67

Just once, I'd like to hear an electronics developer, in HP/Palm's situation, humbly concede, "We realize that we're entering a crowded market. We realize that we're entering late. However, our strategy is simple: ply the development community with incentives which, over time, should help us flesh out our platform into an engaging and useful product." I've read little but boasting from HP about the new round of WebOS…

They've been inching towards being flexible. Hopefully their statements about possibly licensing webOS with other manufacturers will bear fruit.

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#69
If webOS fails, I think its legacy will be being too ahead of its time twice- one for being a neat smartphone OS back in 2009 with several features that both the iPhone and Android lacked (card system for multitasking, development platform based on web programming languages), and second for getting into the multi-device platform game prior to OS X Lion and Windows 8 (the webOS will run on everything from desktops to printers initiative that HP is currently pushing).

Re: HP TouchPad: Shipping July 1

#70

Just once, I'd like to hear an electronics developer, in HP/Palm's situation, humbly concede, "We realize that we're entering a crowded market. We realize that we're entering late. However, our strategy is simple: ply the development community with incentives which, over time, should help us flesh out our platform into an engaging and useful product." I've read little but boasting from HP about the new round of WebOS…

I could care less about talk in any case. I've been following Windows Phone 7 as of late and it seems that they've made it easy to program for the platform by offering development tools, samples, and instruction. There is scant documentation or examples for Enyo.

They changed app dev frameworks on all of their existing developers from Mojo to Enyo. That can't help either. I think they have a near Herculean task in trying to claw back market share. There seem to be a few evangelists who love the webOS platform and its devices but when it comes to consumers paying at the door that is in jeopardy.

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