by Timmy Falcon
Those thinking of skimping with a reduced-rate HP TouchPad tablet instead of the iPad 2 they were planning to purchase should think again. even at a bargain rate of under a hundred dollars, the TouchPad is damaged goods. Hewlett Packard failed to generate any interest in the tablet at full price, so it slashed the price, then again, and still finding no interest, discontinued it. The remaining inventory was headed for a landfill, so HP opted to instead blow it at $99, a price point which saw the company lose money on each unit. now there’s one last round of super cheap TouchPads coming to market as HP uses up the remaining TouchPad components its had contracted from suppliers. For those who were planning to buy an iPad 2, here’s why the TouchPad makes an insufficient substitute at any price.
5) No iOS. The touchscreen interface which Apple perfected on the iPhone and iPod touch before expanding it to the iPad is missing from the HP TouchPad, replaced instead by the for-the-geeks by-the-geeks webOS interface. if you’re not a hardcore geek, webOS isn’t for you.
4) few apps. Unlike Apple’s App Store which as hundreds of thousands of apps for iPad and iPhone, there are very few apps available for the TouchPad, the few that do exist are comparatively difficult to locate and install, and there won’t be any more apps coming. Ever…
3) No support. one HP employee swears that the webOS operating system will continue to be developed. it turns out that employee is among those about to become former HP employees once the company finishes getting rid of its TouchPad division. Oops. No one wants to get caught using a discontinued operating system unless they’re so overly skilled in programming that they can hand-code future versions of the software themselves. if you’re considering a consumer-centric device like the iPad 2 to begin with, that’s probably not you.
2) few accessories. so few TouchPad units have been sold that it’ll be difficult enough to find something like a rubber case for it, let alone more sophisticated accessories. in contrast, the iPad 2 has everything from stereo docks to app enhanced alarm clocks.
1) damaged goods. Remember, the HP TouchPad isn’t in the headlines because it was a success. It’s in the headlines because it’s the single most embarrassing failure in the brief history of tablet computers (and there have been plenty). if the $499 price tag of the iPad 2 isn’t in your budget, you might do better to simply not have a tablet in your life until you can afford a real one. Buying a DOA crippled castoff like the HP TouchPad as a “starter tablet” is merely a surefire way to get off on the wrong foot and possibly sour your desire to own a “real” tablet computer in the future. Here’s more on the death of the HP TouchPad.