“HP continually evaluates pricing for its products and is pleased to permanently extend its back-to-school promotion on the HP TouchPad,” an HP spokesperson told VentureBeat.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":318801,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,","session":"C"}']The steep discount comes only about a month after its debut, which indicates the webOS-powered tablet is probably not selling very well. It probably didn’t help that the product’s most prominent advertising features lesser-known celebrities (in the U.S.) like British comic Russell Brand and boxer/singer Manny Pacquiao. And then there’s that whole iPad thing, which, combined with a slew of recent Android-based tablets, makes it an especially challenging time to launch a new tablet.
The TouchPad 16GB version is now selling for $399 while the 32GB version sells for $499. Knocking $100 off the price of the base unit means the tablet undercuts the market leader, Apple’s iPad, which starts at $499 and goes all the way up to $829. HP is clearly hoping consumers will choose the cheaper tablet over the better-known one.
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Although it isn’t as well-known, that doesn’t mean the TouchPad doesn’t have decent specs and interesting features. The 9.7-inch TouchPad features a dual-core 1.2-GHz Snapdragon processor and a front-facing camera for video conferencing. It also runs the very cool WebOS, which puts Apple’s iOS on the iPad 2 to shame when it comes to multitasking.
Does the $100 price drop make you more interested in the TouchPad?
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