It Just Can't Fade Off Into Obscurity...

That's right, HP came back to world after pulling the plug on it's entry into the tablet industry by saying they are doing one more limited rollout of HP TouchPad's...What?  Seriously?!

So let's get this straight, the only way they were able to move the existing stock of TouchPad's was to basically kill the production and drop support for the device.  So everyone who had these little devices in stock basically, said "World, buy 'em up!" and firesold what was left.  And we thought that would be it for the TouchPad.  No more new TouchPad's hitting the market.  They were done.

Existing owners can enjoy the device or delve into the modding world and try to exploit Android on the tablet.  Now HP is saying they will make one more run with the TouchPad.  At what point is enough really enough?  I can't say that it is because of the money, because clearly there was a loss on the TouchPad's sold a couple of weeks ago.  Could HP be getting greedy and try to slip a 'reduced' price TouchPad into the market (without it being the $99 low price seen a couple of weekends ago)?

HP hasn't released how much this last run of TouchPad will cost consumers.  But it will be interesting to see what happens.

And to HP, I say: "Maybe as a company you should pick a side of the fence and stay on it.".

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HP TouchPad is on Fire...Literally...

Saturday HP started selling the 16GB HP TouchPad (yeah, the one that recently had it's plug pulled).  And get this, the 32GB model is listed at $149.  Now that is a heck of a deal for a tablet device.  The downside, HP isn't supporting the device anymore.

What does this mean?  Well for starters, no updates to webOS, no hardware updates for the device itself.  A lack of offerings from 3rd party accessories since the tablet isn't manufacturer supported anymore; just to name a few.  I was hoping either someone would swoop in and buy the rights to the device or a community of developers or device enthusiasts would decide to utilize the hardware in other ways.

So what might be possible in the near future?  Well there appears to be a project ramping up to utilize the TouchPad as an Android device.  That's right!  Suppose this project goes well, the potential for a $99 Android Tablet is looking pretty good especially if you're looking to get your hands a little dirty with the workings of your $99 paperweight.  So the future is looking somewhat brighter for the HP TouchPad, just not as a webOS device.

Checkout the HP TouchPad Android Projects Website at RootzWiki.

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