If you didn’t notice the sudden rush for HP TouchPads last weekend, here’s what went down: after HP announced that they were shutting down their webOS hardware operations, they slashed the HP TouchPad’s price again, shortly after they dropped the price down to $400 earlier this month. Last week, they went for broke and offered the TouchPad for $100 (for the 16GB version). Never mind that this tablet might not be seeing any support from HP in the near future, but that price drop was enough for them to clear stock. HP’s page is now listing the TouchPad as ‘sold out.’
If you bought a TouchPad before the dramatic price drops, you’re likely more than just a little teed off. For HP’s loyal customers who picked up the tablet back when HP thought it could be competitive, HP has extended their return period to 60 days. Or you can just call HP and get back the price difference (some say they even refunded the taxes.)
So what do you do with a soon-to-be-extinct tablet platform? For starters, you can always use it the way they intended you to use it. There’s a browser and media player in there. And for $100, it makes for a very cheap ebook reader. But looking forward, here’s a little hope for getting a little more use for the TouchPad: it could be turned into a low-end Android tablet. According to CyanogenMod contributor Erik Hardesty, he’s planning to work on a way to get the tablet to run on Android 2.3 (not Honeycomb).
Tags: HP, HP TouchPad, Tablets
