the tablet war is heating up

[Alan Shutko]

My friend (an avid fan of webOS) had an interesting comment. The white 64GB TouchPad was just announced for Europe today, and then we hear they're killing all their devices. None of us expected that, especially since TouchPad has been getting pretty decent reviews. (In the "Someone wouldn't buy this over an iPad, but it's getting closer" vein.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Pretty crazy stuff there with HP.

I recently bought a Toshiba Thrive. I'm digging it. I am finding it allows me to actually enjoy reading PDF's of electronic books I have and I suspect that future purchases will probably be more carefully weighed in the future where before it was almost always a print purchase.

The ability to swap out my own battery and use USB, MicroSD, etc... is also sweet as I've already used it to carry around scenarios, art, PDF's, etc...

Still not Netflix though but thank god Adult Swim works right off the web as does Clone Wars off the Star Wars sight right off the web.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My friend (an avid fan of webOS) had an interesting comment. The white 64GB TouchPad was just announced for Europe today, and then we hear they're killing all their devices. None of us expected that, especially since TouchPad has been getting pretty decent reviews. (In the "Someone wouldn't buy this over an iPad, but it's getting closer" vein.)

The HP poison "tablet" boggles me too. I'm a Mac guy, and my first mobile device was a Palm Tungsten, which I loved (purchased in 2003 or so). I just last month managed to rescue my files from it- it was dying- and now own an iTouch...which I love. But that Palm was reliable, easy to use, and tough as Hell. It took some killing to finally put it down.

Given my past experiences, I'd have thought HP, having purchased Palm's OS would be able to translate that into a serious challenger to the iPad.

And with me being in the market for a half-dozen+ tablets, I wanted to see some real competition for the iPad. Not 'cause I dislike it, but because I like having real choices to make.

 

[nedjer]

The HP poison "tablet" boggles me too. I'm a Mac guy, and my first mobile device was a Palm Tungsten, which I loved (purchased in 2003 or so). I just last month managed to rescue my files from it- it was dying- and now own an iTouch...which I love. But that Palm was reliable, easy to use, and tough as Hell. It took some killing to finally put it down.

Given my past experiences, I'd have thought HP, having purchased Palm's OS would be able to translate that into a serious challenger to the iPad.

And with me being in the market for a half-dozen+ tablets, I wanted to see some real competition for the iPad. Not 'cause I dislike it, but because I like having real choices to make.

HP just buried WebOS. So far the only (almost equally expensive) alternative seems to be the new Samsung

 

[catsclaw227]

That was crazy short, especially for a tablet that was getting significantly better reviews than most Android tablets.

Crazy times. As several wags have noted, it's not yet a "tablet market", it's an "iPad market". I hope someone comes along to change that, or at least make a significant dent. I love my iPad, but at the very least want competitors pushing Apple to not rest on their laurels.

That is crazy news about WebOS. Maybe the Google/Motorola deal will put some pressure on the iPad market. Maybe they can put the full weight of Google into it and ink some commercial/corporate deals to get numbers and users up. I would prefer a tablet with SD (or MicroSD) and USB.

I am considering the Asus Eee Transformer with the keyboard docking station. That grants some connections and brings battery life up something like 8-10 hours.

 

[IronWolf]

And they've been slashing the TouchPad pricing tremendously. I friend of mine just posted a receipt of a 32GB one he picked up for $149.99.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I'm just hopihg they sell their patents to Google, which is unlikely.


Right now I'm waiting to see if anyone managed to port Android onto it before suggesting to my GF to get one. (She's been wanting a tablet but doesn't want to spend too much money on one).

 

[drothgery]

I guess we'll see. Until Microsoft can get their mobile OS to have similar speed and battery life, I don't think it will happen. I'm not averse to Microsoft in the least..but their mobile tablets seem the most expensive, and with the shortest battery life.

Current Windows tablets are pretty much laptops with a touch screen and without a keyboard (or capable of operating with the keyboard hidden). It's not surprising that they have batter life like a laptop or netbook; they're much, much more capable generally. With Win8, it seems like there are going to be two classes of tablets - ARM devices more like iPads (which can't run traditional Windows apps), and improved versions of the current Windows tablets (because newer CPUs should offer more performance on less power, and solid-state drives should be cheaper).

 

[Banshee16]

HP just buried WebOS. So far the only (almost equally expensive) alternative seems to be the new Samsung

there are a few more options than that. Don't just depend on written specs. Try some devices. I just bought the ASUS Transformer a week ago and am very happy with it. i know people with the Xoom who love it. Fundamentally, most of the Android tablets are very similar. The Touchpad was very different,due to the OS. And so is the Playbook. There are many choices!

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Wow, insane:

Two Weeks Ago: Woot puts the HP TouchPad up for a day at $120 off, sells 612, pathetic by Woot status where items at that price and newness tend to sell thousands and Woot completely sells out its stock.

Yesterday: Best Buy lets leak that they were shipped 270,000 TouchPads seven weeks ago and thus far have sold less than 25,000, and that they want to return their entire stock.

Today: HP announces they're dumping all webOS hardware and will not be selling them in the future. (And for that matter, they're getting out of the computer and mobile hardware business altogether.)

That was crazy short, especially for a tablet that was getting significantly better reviews than most Android tablets.

Crazy times. As several wags have noted, it's not yet a "tablet market", it's an "iPad market". I hope someone comes along to change that, or at least make a significant dent. I love my iPad, but at the very least want competitors pushing Apple to not rest on their laurels.

I think a big part of the problem is that WebOS, though having a better interface, had very little app support. Honeycomb's interface may not be as nice, but it has a big ecosystem and hundreds of thousands of apps. To anyone who pulls out the "Honeycomb only has 600 apps argument, I call BS. I've barely run into anything my tablet can't run. Some of the interfaces are a little bare, because they're for phones...but they work fine and in most cases upscale properly. I've run into *one* that didn't.

WebOS doesn't have that..nor does it have the Playbook's ability to tap into someone else's ecosystem (ie. Android).

I'm not saying that to criticize WebOS. I think WebOS and QNX actually have the most advanced OS' and best designed interfaces...unfortunately they don't have the attention of American media and consequently lack the sales. If HP said that they'd make an Android or iOS emulator, and be able to use the apps from those ecosystems, i bet it would haved the device.

Banshee