HP TouchPad Release Date and Pricing Leaked?

1. electronic paperless billing.
2. internet product materials.
3. internet advertising (vs. paper).
4. "just email it to me" mentality in business.
5. online instruction manuals.

i'm sure the list goes on and on but as the example the previous poster gave (Doctor's Office) - the tablet will probably further drive this trend.

personally i hate the waste and inefficiency and abuse of paper.

Low end: For those that can't afford tablets and will still print in their el-chepo ink jet printers connected to a gallon jug of printer ink.

Middle end: the "print only" middle quality printer will be replaced by multifunctional devices such as combination printers and scanners.

High end: high quality printers that have resolutions and page sizes greater than the screens of tablets.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/06/best-buy-ad-prices-motorola-xoom-at-800-affirms-february-24th/

IMO any tablet that does not match or beat iPad's basic specs and price will fail.

At $700+ these things will be as dead as WebTV or Audrey....or the Fooleo.

In all fairness, nothing could be as dead as the Foleo. They never even launched the damn thing. :)

Yes. Apple must have locked in very good supply contracts to crush the price down as it has.

But then all these other companies are always looking to put a slice of cheese on their business with higher prices. Look at how no one really matched Palm's PDA prices (although at $500 for the damn LifeDrive, Palm was price bloating to Pocket PC levels).

Compare that strategy to Palm's attempt to differentiate between an upper tier Pre and a lower tier Pixie, which collapses as Pre's dropped in price.

1. He's still under contract from his Pre Plus for AT&T purchase
2. He uses a Pre Plus as his daily driver
3. He was really looking forward to a WebOS 2.0 update

Right now, relative to the competition, I'd rate WebOS 2.0 as an OS about a 6.5/10. For hardware, the Veer gets a 2/10, the Pre 2 is a 5/10, the Pre 3 gets a 7.5/10 and the TouchPad probably a 7 or an 8.

As far as the TouchPad price goes, it's too much considering its specs other than the CPU are not an improvement AT ALL over the year-old iPad. Pundits are already claiming the Moto Xoom and the RIM Playbook DOA at price that are comparable or slightly better than equivalent first-gen iPads.

More so than specs, Apple has had an entire year to totally run roughshod over the entire tablet market. They've catptured marketshare and mindshare and sold oodles of the first-gen iPad with relatively weak specs. Can you imagine if they decide to drop the price by $50 or $100 of the 16gb Wi-fi model and keep it around as the entry level iPad? No one is buying 64gb 3G iPads. EVERYONE wants a 16gb wi-fi model or a 32gb wi-fi version if they want to store more stuff on it. You can justify paying more for WWAN connectivity on something you need (smartphone, PC). A tablet falls somewhere between a toy and a luxury "spare" computing device and should be priced accordingly.

If Apple had launched the iPad with ONLY a 32gb or 64gb 3G SKU last year those things would as stillborn as the 25th anniversary Mac. The brilliance of launching a low-margin $500 base model had a reverse halo effect on the pricier iPad SKUs. Instead of cheapening the brand or the line, that single "cheap" iPad convinced a LOT of people to go with a $500 tablet over a $400 netbook last year.

And the strangest part about all of this (at least to me) is how the only carriers fielding non-iOS tablets are these damned phone manufacturers, NOT PC or CE companies! Where was Sony's tablet 6 months ago? Why is Toshiba's tablet taking so long to appear? Samsung? Where are the Asian no-name clones? Where is Dell with a REAL tablet effort? Acer and Asus, two companies that absolutely mopped the floor with an endless array of solid netbooks back in 2007-20010, have done absolutely nothing in the tablet space ...other than stand around and release more netbooks. I don't expect HP's entry to be any different than the others. I also question the value of spending resources to integrate Fooleo-type features of dubious value into the Touchpad.

Transfer a call from my HP smartphone to my Touchpad? Exhibition mode? Please. Instead of all of that foolishness that tried to to trick me into buying two WebOS devices, how about sourcing a higher-qualityresolution or better quality LCD panel or figuring out how to incorporate removable storage into WebOS. Or just give us USB 3.0 or a user-replacable battery.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX

As I've said in response to the update checker story, I'm probably done with WebOS unless Sprint provides a very cheap upgrade path from my Pre. But I have to believe that people who bought a Pre Plus at least have a shot at getting an update eventually. I don't think HP would've bothered with an update checker otherwise. I'm sure they understand now how screwed over some people feel. (The only reason I don't feel that way is because I expected to have to upgrade after 2 years.)

When HP bought Palm, I sort of expected them to do a lot more with the software. The changes have been too incremental, and they haven't done enough work either encouraging third party development or developing WebOS software themselves. Maybe I missed it, but I was really expecting some new apps out of WebOS 2.0 (and certainly 3.0), but instead we got refinements of old software and "social integration" of existing software. There were the magazines, of course, but that was for the TouchPad. And I just can't' fathom why they'd want to limit Kindle software to the TouchPad. It would've gone at least some way towards pleasing faithful users if they'd ported the Kindle software to the 1.45 software -- or at least to the 2.0 software. But to leave it for the TouchPad? Eghad! I just don't understand the thought process at all.

I'll see what the EVO 2 brings to the table.

If the Foleo had just a little more horsepower, it would've been similar to the netbooks that were just around the corner at the time. The lack of Flash video and the price were deal-killers, though. (Does that sound familiar to anyone?)

http://www.ismashphone.com/2010/07/retrospect-a-look-back-at-the-palms-foleo.html

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/ontherun/celio-redfly-could-be-what-the-palm-foleo-wanted-to-be-if-it-grew-up-22017

And the RedFly was just a dumb terminal for your phone. The Foleo could operate independently. The Atrix has more in common w/ Redfly than the Foleo.

I'm not saying that the Foleo was the first netbook, or the only mini-laptop. But neither was it just a detachable keyboard and display, as the Atrix is.

Had this had a WebOS (the other Linux OS they were working on @ the time), horsepower at least approaching the emerging netbook craze, and did some serious real time sync, that could have been a very worthwhile concept IMO.

Then again, looking back at my list, Palm was not close to delivering ANY of that. so who cares. Well, at least we've got the Veer to look forward to.
Pat Horne

And what's doubly bizarre is Samsung dropping 7" screens for 10" screens. 7" screen is a niche that would do very well because people like having something smaller they can drop in a bag and tote around. Some people say there isn't that much of a difference between a 4" screen and 7" screen but that's baloney. I'm disappointed HP didn't show a 7" TouchPad too, although one has been rumored. HP could have locked in a huge supply of 7" screens and addressed a market Apple has chosen to ignore.