Lines Form for $99 TouchPad, Now Sold Out
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 22nd Aug 2011 21:19 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless Last week, HP killed its webOS devices unit. Over the weekend, the company slashed the prices on the TouchPad. The result? The TouchPad sold out completely in a matter of hours. This confirms what I've been hearing from friends and family: "I'd love a tablet, but I'm not paying laptop money for one."
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kristoph
Member since:
2006-01-01

Yes.. because the ipad is far more "pleasent" for using keyboard/mouse centric programs or replacing everything one could do with a 500$ laptop right? Be careful how you throw around the claim that no computer use can be a pleasent as on your brand loyalty.



You missed my point. I was simply saying that on a $500 laptop most software generally runs poorly.

I have a USD 450 Lenovo I got purely for development testing and the thing is pretty poor. The battery life sucks, browsing performance is bad (that could be mostly flash though), Microsoft office apps struggle, and don't even think about playing any PC games from this era.

On the other hand I don't have any such issues with an iPad 2 and so the experience is much better at a comparable cost.

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Reply Parent Score: 3

Drumhellar Member since:
2005-07-12

I don't know about $500 laptops, but my $450 laptop runs most software quite well.

Reply Parent Score: 5

daedalus Member since:
2011-01-14

I appreciate the point you're making there, the iPad is certainly a more pleasant experience for casual browsing and what not, but while a $450 laptop is bound to struggle with large applications, how does your iPad 2 handle Microsoft Office? Or any PC game from a few years ago? A $450 laptop will be clunky for many tasks, but at least it can *do* them, and that makes it a more useful device in many situations.

Reply Parent Score: 4

henrikmk Member since:
2005-07-10

I appreciate the point you're making there, the iPad is certainly a more pleasant experience for casual browsing and what not, but while a $450 laptop is bound to struggle with large applications, how does your iPad 2 handle Microsoft Office? Or any PC game from a few years ago? A $450 laptop will be clunky for many tasks, but at least it can *do* them, and that makes it a more useful device in many situations.


I find it interesting how the tablet is continually compared to a laptop. Why would you run MS Office on an iPad? Why would you run apps or games that require touch and accelerometer on a laptop? You might as well compare the laptop to a similarly priced game console. Do people complain that MS Office doesn't run on an XBox and that you can't typeset large documents with a gamepad?

With regards to games, the iPad is exactly in the same situation as any game console in that the hardware doesn't change very often. This brings a certain guarantee to the experience for anyone using the device and I don't have to be bothered with "my laptop is too slow for my expensively purchased app/game" complaints.

You know that you will get a much more consistent experience with an iPad than a similarly priced laptop in the same way that games for an XBox are very likely to run on your XBox. Whether you find that experience too restrictive or can be happy with it is another matter.

Reply Parent Score: 4

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