Seems short on features compared to the Xoom and Ipad 2.

would really love to be able to output display to a TV. any idea if HP will have this option for the Touchpad 2 or what other tablet should i look into for this capability?

It's an HP so this will never be in my home (unless I win one). HP used to be a stand up company. No longer, and many of their products blow donkeys.

Looks like you can get it for $299 at Staples this weekend:

http://www.webosroundup.com/2011/08/16gb-hp-touchpad-could-be-at-cheapest-price-ever-this-weekend/

kmanne wrote:Looks like you can get it for $299 at Staples this weekend:

http://www.webosroundup.com/2011/08/16gb-hp-touchpad-could-be-at-cheapest-price-ever-this-weekend/

Good luck.
I've looked up and down the east coast on their "find it in store" and it's not in stock.
The 32GB is, however. so it would be $399.

corfeld wrote:This is a nice tablet with a pretty smooth OS, but I just can't justify buying anything WebOS right now. The app selection just isn't there. This is nothing more than a luxury item, and it's hampered by that limited selection. The app store growth doesn't seem to be there at the moment. Having great hardware specs is nice, but it means nothing without a robust selection of apps to use on it. As much as I'm not a fan of iOS, and haven't been all that impressed with the Android tablets, I'm leaning towards either the iPad or the Galaxy Tab 10.1 because they're a more complete package that seems to provide more value for the price than the Touchpad (or RIM's Playbook).

The numbers don't give me much confidence that the Touchpad can be competitive or viable in the long run. WebOS is currently at about 1% of the mobile OS market. Their app store has roughly 10,000 apps. Their plans for growth, so far, are to release outdated hardware too late into the market. That doesn't give me confidence that things are going to change for the better.

What the hell do you need so many apps for? You realize that most people just get on their computer and fire up a web browser? I am getting so sick of hearing this 'lack of apps' drivel coming from nerds. I have an iPad and I just bought one of these and could NOT CARE LESS ABOUT THE LACK OF APPS. I have purchased hundreds of dollars of 'apps' on my iPad and I might get a few moments of enjoyment out of them but for the most part they are just a waste of money. Probably 90% of these 'apps' are just fancied up front-ends to the same exact data you can access via the web. APPS ARE OVERRATED.

I want a touchpad because I want webOS. I wouldn't touch any Galaxy Tab or RIM garbage with a 10 foot pole. They have some of the worst interfaces in the history of personal computing. Not to mention how ridiculously buggy and terrible the software is. I don't get where this obsession with 'features' and 'apps selection' has come from, but it's repulsive and doesn't have anything to do with what average users actually want. It's unfortunate that some people actually get sucked into it and start to believe that it matters.

ivanivanovich wrote:I can not get the stupid Home & Home Office page to actually cough up the $100 discount even though it promises that it will.

Do you have a link that's working?

It's strange, I went on last night and they hadn't updated the site yet so it just showed the $50 instant rebate. Then I tried early this morning and got the same thing. A little later in the morning I went back to the site and it showed two $50 instant rebates, for a total of $100 off (making the price of the 16GB model $399 as expected), and I tested out the coupon code and it accepted it. I thought that meant it was all fixed. Now I go back there and it's only showing the one $50 instant rebate. They must be having some kind of problem with their site. It's an advertised price for this weekend though so calling them on the phone would work I'm sure. Last time I called the HP Home & Home Office Store (around a month or two ago) I got someone in the U.S. almost immediately and she was actually helpful. I'm not sure if you can use a coupon code over the phone though, I've never tried it.

Edit: It looks like their chat support agents can also credit you for the difference if necessary:

"Mary B: There is some error in the price, but the $50 is just a temporary charge to your credit card, if you are ready to buy it, chat us back we will give you a back end credit of $50, so that you can get the total of $100 rebate."

bhodilee wrote:Have you played with the new Toshiba Tablet? That one has peaked my interest, though I'm not sure why they went mini USB and not micro.

Not trying to be "That Guy", but I think the word you want is "piqued".

Piqued: to excite (interest, curiousity, etc.)
Peaked: to reach a summit or plateau (or more colloquially, "It's all downhill from here")

:D

j5 wrote:Good luck.
I've looked up and down the east coast on their "find it in store" and it's not in stock.
The 32GB is, however. so it would be $399.

I called 3 stores in the area. They all said that they only carry the 16 gig online. They all still had the price listed at $599 (for 32 gig) so they must not be doing the HP instant discount. So the $100 coupon will only get it to $499 for 32 gig. If you go to the website, you get $100 off both but obviously can't use the coupon.

kringansaha wrote:however, you will be paying state taxes on the item when you buy from hp, not from woot. so effectively, woot might be 10 dollars cheaper.

As long as you are not in Texas.

Definitely like the look of it, but HP should have just stuck with Windows 8 instead of buying the sinking WebOS. Not many people are willing to invest in a dying ecosystem. Hopefully they come out with some nice looking Windows 8 tablets so I can use my Zune Pass with it.

Go to Staples, buy it for $399, and present this coupon

http://www.fatwallet.com/static/attachments/105620__100_staples_98980.jpg

You get it for $299

kmanne wrote:Looks like you can get it for $299 at Staples this weekend:

http://www.webosroundup.com/2011/08/16gb-hp-touchpad-could-be-at-cheapest-price-ever-this-weekend/

Ha! Good luck with that, i have found that store to NEVER have anything in stock that was advertised that i was interested in. It is ALWAYS out of stock.

j5 wrote:I don't care about OS, I care about 3rd party support (Apps, cases, apps, adapters, keyboards, apps, etc.) That's what is killing me with the WebOS, lack of options.

I was considering that Transformer thing. I'll be replacing my Aspire One.

What the heck do you do on your device? How can you not care about the OS? Android is so freaking buggy that I have to pull the battery from my galaxy s phone (a completely overrated device) on a weekly basis. What are you going to accomplish on an OS that crashes constantly? I'm guessing that 3rd party support really means 'has lots of mindless games'.

It seems to me that this tablet/smartphone revolution is nothing more than a bunch of people buying glorified game systems. The quality of android apps is extremely terrible, and iphone apps really aren't a whole lot better. Aside from games, I don't see what everyone is doing with these bazillions of apps.

Computer engineer (really) here.

So yes, air in the atmosphere does get colder as you go higher up. However, that's only a concern if you're skydiving, or maybe if you have a habit of opening the window on your airplane for some fresh air.

But to understand the issue, you have to look at why electronic equipment has an altitude spec in the first place. That is because air at high altitude is thinner. Thinner air doesn't cool electronics as well because there are fewer air molecules to carry away the heat with.

The worst case is when equipment is at high altitude AND at high temperature. So the worst case is actually somebody like a field engineer in Denver on a hot summer day.

Cold air (so long as it's not freezing) is generally good news for electronics. It runs faster (this is because of device physics, that's another discussion entirely) and safe from overheating.

There is a relationship between temperature specification and altitude specification called a derating curve. A typical derating is 1 degC/1000 ft (1.8 degF/1000 ft). So if a given piece of equipment is specified to operate at 40 degC and 5000 ft, it will also work at 39C and 6000 ft, or 30C and 15000ft.

So back to our airline cabin, even if it's pressurized at 7000-8000 ft, they tend to be cold environments, so any typical piece of consumer electronics is not going to have any problems operating.

ivanivanovich wrote:Yes, however the air is cooler with higher altitude by an average of about 3.6° F per 1,000 ft.

So the thinner air at 5,000' is also 18° cooler (on average, typically, in the absence of a temperature inversion, etc.).

Gee, I wish a computer engineer would come along and set this straight! :-) I've seen altitude limits on hardware before and never known who to ask about them.

Maybe the magnetic field strength isn't high enough at altitude for the compass to work!

-- Ed

KUdude wrote:This is the cheapest you will find it for. Its 279 plus 5 dollars shipping and no tax. Amazon and everywhere else will charge you tax.

If you read other post you will see this is not the best price.

filpenny wrote:I hate hate hate apple products, and refuse to give them my money.

well reasoned...

This just in over at Engadget not sure if this is true or no.

HP TouchPad now $200 off at Staples -- it's like Christmas in August

If there's still not enough change in your couch to snatch up a $399.99 16GB HP Touchpad, today could be your lucky day -- that is, if you're in the market for a webOS slate in the first place. It looks like Staples is offering a $100 coupon for the slab, which should be applicable to the already discounted price, giving you webOS love for $299 for the 16GB model and $399.99 for 32GB. If that price gets any lower, the $35 tablet might just have to step up its game.
HP TouchPad now $200 off at Staples -- it's like Christmas in August originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Better deal at staples right now:


If there's still not enough change in your couch to snatch up a $399.99 16GB HP Touchpad, today could be your lucky day -- that is, if you're in the market for a webOS slate in the first place. It looks like Staples is offering a $100 coupon for the slab, which should be applicable to the already discounted price, giving you webOS love for $299 for the 16GB model and $399.99 for 32GB.

You do have to buy it in a store, however, and its likely not in stock.

BUT, if you goto staples and buy it on the store computer, you can opt to pay in the store, and then they will accept the coupon for the online purchase!

chowdmury wrote:well reasoned...

Eh, it is what it is. Ain't gonna buy something I'm not going to enjoy. Looking forward to the touchpad!

first... noticed that costco dropped the 32GB version to $479 from $579.

Second... I looked at the touchpad when deciding on a tablet and as much as I love WebOS/PalmOS, I had a hard time getting past the lack of apps available for this unit. Something like 300 vs. the 200,000 for Ipad. I ultimately chose the Ipad for its polished interface and plethora of accessories. The touchpad did feel a bit cheap with its plastic casing, and the battery life wasn't as good as the Ipad. Android wasn't even in the running.

sigipickl wrote:For those of you with HP EPP accounts, the 16gb Touchpad is $375 today through Sunday.... $458 for the 32gb. Just sayin.

I can't get the EPP price to show up on the website from the EPP email that I received this morning. It's still at the non-discounted rate of $424.00 for the 16GB.

[quote postid="4580379" user="davidbowser"]Battery life is solid with many folks reporting 7-8 hour use in the webosroundup and precentral.net forums, but I have never gotten it to less than 20% battery with a day's use. [quote]

I'll add to this. I've had mine off the charger since 6AM (Eastern) (32gb model). I'm at work, but it's been playing music all day (music app-Ampache streaming), have calendar, email, scores(Sports Live), stocks app, task list app, reddit app, and browser with woot comments open all day.

So, all that is open & running in cards, emails are immediate push/pull, & I have other social media accounts (FB/Twitter/LinkedIn) in the background that I set to update hourly that give me webOS notifications.

I am also on a tethered Sprint wifi connection from my phone that is 1 to 2 bars max in my office building. Yet I have very little in the way of 'slow' at all. App catalog, media downloads, and some web pages are all that seem to suffer from the garbage connection I'm relegated to here.

Lastly, it's connected to my phone (Palm Pre) via bluetooth for calls, and the HP TouchPad bluetooth keyboard.

That's 7 1/2 hours. Nightly charge was to 100%, but after 7 1/2 hours of what I have listed, my current battery % is 75%. 75 freaking %.

Now, I can kill the battery with amped up brightness, gaming, really flash heavy content, etc., and if I do all that, I can hurt the thing in 6-8 hours easy. But I use this thing primarily at work for calendar, notifications, task management, & email. Normal use battery life is exceptional & all the while it's doing a huge number of tasks compared to an iPad (which my wife & I also own).

So, no fear on battery life for sure. Had to add to your post.

Do yourself a favor and hit up engadget.com to see how you can get the 16gb version for $299 to $344 depending on the deal you get.

http://www.webosroundup.com/2011/08/16gb-hp-touchpad-could-be-at-cheapest-price-ever-this-weekend/

dave5008 wrote:I can't get the EPP price to show up on the website from the EPP email that I received this morning. It's still at the non-discounted rate of $424.00 for the 16GB.

Works for me .... add the SAVE30HP coupon code, and I am showing $319+tax with free next-day shipping!

shanebo2003 wrote:Works for me .... add the SAVE30HP coupon code, and I am showing $319+tax with free next-day shipping!

Wow, I should have done that instead of buying another one today (via woot!-for my wife). I assumed the EPP wouldn't work. Oh well.

Nah, I'm ok. Don't mind supporting woot! I do wonder what happens to our iPad though, it will probably be relegated to Words With Friends duty.

Let's not forget that the HP Touchpad has the most awesome Easter Egg ever built in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V13dXZPzyx0

My girlfriend and I couldn't stop playing with them at our local Best Buy.

roybotnik wrote:What the hell do you need so many apps for? You realize that most people just get on their computer and fire up a web browser? I am getting so sick of hearing this 'lack of apps' drivel coming from nerds. I have an iPad and I just bought one of these and could NOT CARE LESS ABOUT THE LACK OF APPS. I have purchased hundreds of dollars of 'apps' on my iPad and I might get a few moments of enjoyment out of them but for the most part they are just a waste of money. Probably 90% of these 'apps' are just fancied up front-ends to the same exact data you can access via the web. APPS ARE OVERRATED.

I want a touchpad because I want webOS. I wouldn't touch any Galaxy Tab or RIM garbage with a 10 foot pole. They have some of the worst interfaces in the history of personal computing. Not to mention how ridiculously buggy and terrible the software is. I don't get where this obsession with 'features' and 'apps selection' has come from, but it's repulsive and doesn't have anything to do with what average users actually want. It's unfortunate that some people actually get sucked into it and start to believe that it matters.

The OS, nice as it may be, means nothing without apps. It's only a foundation which is used to build a complete experience. We're talking about tablets. The general population buying tablets is looking for apps to give them an experience that's different from a computer. Any tablet will go online and pop up a functional web browser. If that's all that people wanted from tablets, then those garbage cheap-o Android tablets that sell for under $200 would be king of the market. It's the other stuff that draws people in. It's the variety of apps. WebOS fails in that regard. Apps sell devices, plain and simple. A tablet with apps will draw in more paying customers, which draws in more money that can be used to further develop the OS and the hardware, which will draw more app developers looking to get a piece of the action, which creates more apps. This is where WebOS is losing, and big time. They've got an abysmal selection that does not appeal to the general public. If sales suck, support will suck. App developers will abandon the platform, as they already have for the WebOS phones, and sales will continue to be flat. Eventually, the money necessary to further develop the platform dries up because it's not profitable and WebOS goes the way of PalmOS.

JediLow wrote:Bad timing for woot - HP is giving it a $100 discount this weekend. (You only save $20 now)

Most people don't have to pay tax here as well, so it's a pretty nice deal.

random question: i know it may seem odd, but do you have certain browser freedoms through webOS like whether to go with chrome or firefox instead of IE? if i can choose browsers, can i also use a bunch of add-ons with these things? HP is known for having awful proprietary requirements with some of their products (cameras, printers, etc.) which is 100% the reason i stay away from them. i am also really unfamiliar with mobile OS's.

corfeld wrote:The OS, nice as it may be, means nothing without apps. It's only a foundation which is used to build a complete experience. We're talking about tablets. The general population buying tablets is looking for apps to give them an experience that's different from a computer. Any tablet will go online and pop up a functional web browser. If that's all that people wanted from tablets, then those garbage cheap-o Android tablets that sell for under $200 would be king of the market. It's the other stuff that draws people in. It's the variety of apps. WebOS fails in that regard. Apps sell devices, plain and simple. A tablet with apps will draw in more paying customers, which draws in more money that can be used to further develop the OS and the hardware, which will draw more app developers looking to get a piece of the action, which creates more apps. This is where WebOS is losing, and big time. They've got an abysmal selection that does not appeal to the general public. If sales suck, support will suck. App developers will abandon the platform, as they already have for the WebOS phones, and sales will continue to be flat. Eventually, the money necessary to further develop the platform dries up because it's not profitable and WebOS goes the way of PalmOS.

Actually, it is the sheer number of apps that WebOS struggles. Their variety is really decent. They have apps for all major categories, but not all the different choices available to iOS and Android.

What I find is that rather than go to my IMDB app to find out who "that guy" is, I go to IMDB.com. Rather than pay for Hulu Plus, I go to Hulu.com. Rather than go to my banks app, I go to my bank's website.

Of course, it may go away, it may dry up, but it has a strong company behind it and it is incredibly useful now - and in ways that will continue to be useful (browsing, email, note-taking, blogging, consuming media). I find it better than the others because I find I use about 15 apps on my Nexus S and I use about 10 on my TouchPad and WebOS is simply better.

jebalaya wrote:random question: i know it may seem odd, but do you have certain browser freedoms through webOS like whether to go with chrome or firefox instead of IE? if i can choose browsers, can i also use a bunch of add-ons with these things? HP is known for having awful proprietary requirements with some of their products (cameras, printers, etc.) which is 100% the reason i stay away from them. i am also really unfamiliar with mobile OS's.

There's already one non-stock browser available that adds tabbed browsing & some other nice features, but it's pretty close in basic function to the stock browser. There are even a couple in the webOS phone space. So there is some freedom for sure.

As for chrome & firefox, I would assume if they dev'd an app, it would be fine. For the more involved homebrew supporters, you can partition Ubuntu & run it actively in card view within webOS. It still has rough edges, but opens up a larger world of existing (but not optimized) software possibilities. Anyway, hope that helps.

"It looks like Staples is offering a $100 coupon for the slab, which should be applicable to the already discounted price, giving you webOS love for $299 for the 16GB model" Engadget

jebalaya wrote:random question: i know it may seem odd, but do you have certain browser freedoms through webOS like whether to go with chrome or firefox instead of IE? if i can choose browsers, can i also use a bunch of add-ons with these things? HP is known for having awful proprietary requirements with some of their products (cameras, printers, etc.) which is 100% the reason i stay away from them. i am also really unfamiliar with mobile OS's.

There are multiple browsers available, but not a lot of add-on style pieces yet. Development for WebOS is ridiculously open. There is a huge Homebrew community that HP has actually sent dev machines and a server. WebOS is really, really, awesome.

lol it's $299 at Staples... http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/05/hp-touchpad-now-200-off-at-staples-its-like-christmas-in-au/ I hope no one bought it yet

eejjrr wrote:And I quote:

"Holy cow! $380.00 for a tablet with no software base and which will be discontinued, along with the rest of the Web OS platform in a year or two? What a bargain!

"Sorry to be the one to say it, but this thing's DOA. Palm was a wonder back in 1995 but they dropped the ball somewhere along the way and are now basically a Zombie OS. Had they played their cards right Palm could have been Android. Now they're just a subject for wistful tech nostalgia (I'll always have fond memories of my Atari 800, my Zip Drive and my Palm Tungsten E)."

And I quote: "you know nothing of what you speak. Stop posting please."

Also have to laugh at the people asking if you can hack the Touchpad to use Android instead... talk about a step in the wrong direction. That's like wiping your shiny new Windows 7 PC to install XP, or dumping OS X to install MacOS 9.

Um, STAPLES got WOOT! Beat by $100
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/05/hp-touchpad-now-200-off-at-staples-its-like-christmas-in-au/

Anyone know if RDP is supported on WebOS yet?

tmedvick wrote:Actually, it is the sheer number of apps that WebOS struggles. Their variety is really decent. They have apps for all major categories, but not all the different choices available to iOS and Android.

What I find is that rather than go to my IMDB app to find out who "that guy" is, I go to IMDB.com. Rather than pay for Hulu Plus, I go to Hulu.com. Rather than go to my banks app, I go to my bank's website.

Of course, it may go away, it may dry up, but it has a strong company behind it and it is incredibly useful now - and in ways that will continue to be useful (browsing, email, note-taking, blogging, consuming media). I find it better than the others because I find I use about 15 apps on my Nexus S and I use about 10 on my TouchPad and WebOS is simply better.

I won't argue that. I use an Android phone at the moment. I think they claim somewhere near 120,000 apps at the moment. It's a nice number, but when you dig into it, there's a lot of fluff and nonsense that bolsters that number. I'm sure the same can be said for iOS and their 300,000 apps.

That said, we are a group that is not typical of prospective tablet buyers. They most likely don't care what OS is running on the tablet. The specs and hardware mean nothing to them. Their concern is which tablet gives them the most complete package and best value for their dollar, and having 300,000 or 120,000 apps is substantially more appealing than 10,000. The thing is, even if 90% of the apps for iOS or Android are trash, the remaining apps are still greater than the total of the WebOS selection. That doesn't bode well of Touchpad sales.

roybotnik wrote:What the hell do you need so many apps for? You realize that most people just get on their computer and fire up a web browser? I am getting so sick of hearing this 'lack of apps' drivel coming from nerds. I have an iPad and I just bought one of these and could NOT CARE LESS ABOUT THE LACK OF APPS. I have purchased hundreds of dollars of 'apps' on my iPad and I might get a few moments of enjoyment out of them but for the most part they are just a waste of money. Probably 90% of these 'apps' are just fancied up front-ends to the same exact data you can access via the web. APPS ARE OVERRATED.

I want a touchpad because I want webOS. I wouldn't touch any Galaxy Tab or RIM garbage with a 10 foot pole. They have some of the worst interfaces in the history of personal computing. Not to mention how ridiculously buggy and terrible the software is. I don't get where this obsession with 'features' and 'apps selection' has come from, but it's repulsive and doesn't have anything to do with what average users actually want. It's unfortunate that some people actually get sucked into it and start to believe that it matters.

I left the palm pre because of the lack of app support. One of the apps I wanted for the longest time is RDP. I dont know if its finally supported, but I got tired of waiting. Besides, have options is what drives the Android and Iphone/Ipod market.