If you are among the estimated 350,000 buyers that snapped up a Touchpad this weekend, the you now own the cheapest high-end tablet that has ever been offered. At $100, what can go wrong? I don’t want to rain on your parade, but the price tag was just one of the dials, albeit a critical one, that distorted the perception of what the Touchpad is. it did not change the tablet landscape, it did not become suddenly a useful device and it did not destroy the tablet market either.
Last weekend, I visited an outlet mall just outside Chicago. I am not doing this very often as I am generally avoiding malls. I guess it’s a guy thing that many of us just don’t enjoy shopping and try to get in and out of a store as quickly as we can. however, noticed that there was a long line outside the Coach store. it was the only store in the mall that had a line. There must have been at least 30 people waiting outside just to get into the store. you could have almost thought they were getting ready to sell a new iPhone. I was later told that the line was probably due to discount coupons Coach had sent out the week before.
There are plenty of other brand name stores that sell purses in that mall as well. no other store could brag about a line of people, even if they were also selling discounted purses. The Coach store was simply busy, because people were convinced they were getting a good deal on a product that is usually much more expensive. I am pretty certain that this line in front of the Coach store was not indicative of a certain product trend or a certain price level for purses that will make people want to stand in line.
There was also a feeding frenzy for the Touchpad over the weekend. a ridiculously discounted tablet that sold for one third of the price that HP paid for materials and assembly alone. it was basically a case of business suicide – in fact, it was suicide as HP simply got rid of a stockpile of Touchpads that would have otherwise been a case for the TV crew of Hoarders.
It’s not like that there haven’t been $99 tablets before. The frenzy happened because a product that was previously offered for $499 was now sold for $99. It’s the classic perception of a good deal, which creates demand that lies outside the reasonable need scenario. it is a case of wanting and desire, not a case of needing. it was like the discount Armani suit you buy for $500 instead of $3000, and it is the $150 Coach purse that usually sells for $300. Do you need that suit? Probably not. Do you need that Coach purse? of course not. so what about that Touchpad? if you are honest, you would have to admit that you only bought it because it was cheap, not because you needed a useful tablet (in that case, you would have bought another tablet already.)
I highly doubt that $99 is the magic price for tablets. without a supporting platform, even a $99 tablet is a waste of money.
The upside of the $99 Touchpad is that you can get your feet wet and figure out whether a tablet is for you or not. It’s not an iPad and you won’t get the breadth of apps and it is apparently painfully slow. Realistically, there is not much you can do with this tablet, at least not in comparison to an iPad. if you end up enjoying the Touchpad, and you conclude that you like the tablet idea, you may end up buying another, much more functional and integrated, tablet and you have to admit that you wasted $99 on the Touchpad.
If you end up hating the tablet idea, then you have saved yourself at least $400 by not buying an expensive Android tablet or an iPad. The actual value of a Touchpad may come courtesy of this PC Magazine article and 10 suggestions what to do with a Touchpad: An alarm clock in the bedroom, if you figure out an improvised stand. a weather station. a recipe bank or internet radio in the kitchen. a movie database in the living room or a cheap tablet your kids can trash. a demo screen for your website. a video phone. a mobile video player for your car. An ereader. Call me silly, but none of those are convincing. I have a Kindle and most other ideas are covered by my smartphone. a $99 alarm clock based on WebOS? What a great idea.
In the end, sorry to be so direct, a discounted Touchpad may not be much more than the discounted Coach purse you buy at the mall.
However, there is one alternative ending that I find very enticing. There are suddenly 350,000 – 500,000 WebOS tablets in the market. Hundreds of thousands of consumers who may be looking for more apps and usability of their tablet. in effect, WebOS could have become much more valuable for a potential buyer of the OS out there. HP may have created the platform it would have needed before to make WebOS a success. Imagine Dell, Lenovo or Samsung snapping up WebOS and installing it on their PCs as HP once promised. Suddenly there is an integrated platform, sponsored by HP.
If HP wants to get rid of WebOS, it should get rid of it now to leverage its “value”. however, if a buyer plays this game in a smart way, WebOS could still have a big future.
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