Best Buy has managed to sell only 25,000 HP TouchPads across its retail stores and apparently wants to return unsold units to HP, according to a source who spoke to AllThingsD on Tuesday. The tablet which initially used the same pricing structure as the iPad (starting at $499 for a 16GB model) has failed to interest consumers even when prices were reduced by $100 for each model.
…The biggest sale yet from flash sale site Woot, which sold the tablet for $120 off, got HP a meager 612 customers.
According to the same source, Best Buy took 270,000 TouchPads into inventory, and so far has managed to move less than ten percent of them—and that figure may not even take returned units into account. Best Buy reportedly no longer wants unsold TouchPads taking up space in its stores and warehouses, and is requesting that HP take the stock back.
The good news for hardware hackers, there might be over 250k super-cheap tablets flooding the market for us to do anything with…
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I’ve been looking for a good tablet to read datasheets from at the workbench, but to be honest I haven’t bitten the bullet because of either price or a lack of additional value to me (being able to do other useful tasks on it).
The idea of sticking/accessing datasheets on a 8-10″ screen is super appealing … I’m just not sure it’s worth $500 to me, especially when I can get a good laptop for me less. What I need … price of a cheap laptop, but big enough LCD to read datasheets.
$350ish is probably the magic number for me. I’d prefer Android or even Windows to Apple, though … at least with the last two you aren’t at the mercy of Apple to decide what you can install on your own HW, and I can easily develop for both those platforms myself.
@kevin: As someone who’s using datasheets and schematics on a daily basis in a field environment, I can highly recommend using a Nook Color. I’ve been very impressed by it so far. It’s a smaller screen than the iPad or HP, but it has worked well for me. No more lugging around 10lb Technical Manuals, hoping I brought the ones I need, and don’t have to go back for more.
The benefits are $250 is half the price of the big-name tablets, it’s Android-based, you can root if you want to, and the most recent firmware update adds a lof of nice improvements.
hhmmm, this tablet runs WebOS (not android). Try one at the store, when I bought mine I was asked if I preferred a galaxy tab or ipad about 3 times, maybe that’s why its not selling. Im very happy with my tablet now and works great to review the datasheet while soldering and play music (and other stuff of course).
I’ll let you know if I can make it talk to an arduino as soon as mu bluetooth module arrives, programing in this tablet is really easy (javascript & nodejs, c++, phonegap, etc).
I’ve been looking for a good tablet to read datasheets from at the workbench, but to be honest I haven’t bitten the bullet because of either price or a lack of additional value to me (being able to do other useful tasks on it).
The idea of sticking/accessing datasheets on a 8-10″ screen is super appealing … I’m just not sure it’s worth $500 to me, especially when I can get a good laptop for me less. What I need … price of a cheap laptop, but big enough LCD to read datasheets.
$350ish is probably the magic number for me. I’d prefer Android or even Windows to Apple, though … at least with the last two you aren’t at the mercy of Apple to decide what you can install on your own HW, and I can easily develop for both those platforms myself.
i’m hoping that its because its best buy thats been selling them they’re doing badly. they’re a terrible store..
My current record is arrested once, detained twice..(for declining to show receipt or leave store without showing) yay best buy.
@kevin: As someone who’s using datasheets and schematics on a daily basis in a field environment, I can highly recommend using a Nook Color. I’ve been very impressed by it so far. It’s a smaller screen than the iPad or HP, but it has worked well for me. No more lugging around 10lb Technical Manuals, hoping I brought the ones I need, and don’t have to go back for more.
The benefits are $250 is half the price of the big-name tablets, it’s Android-based, you can root if you want to, and the most recent firmware update adds a lof of nice improvements.
hhmmm, this tablet runs WebOS (not android). Try one at the store, when I bought mine I was asked if I preferred a galaxy tab or ipad about 3 times, maybe that’s why its not selling. Im very happy with my tablet now and works great to review the datasheet while soldering and play music (and other stuff of course).
I’ll let you know if I can make it talk to an arduino as soon as mu bluetooth module arrives, programing in this tablet is really easy (javascript & nodejs, c++, phonegap, etc).