Posts Tagged ‘HP’

Review: HP TouchPad – First Thoughts

Persistence paid off, and I was finally able to get an HP TouchPad at the unbelievable price of $99.99.

I got to use it for about an hour last night, so this review is truly first thoughts from a tech geek that swapped his iPad 2 for an HP TouchPad for one night.

The model I’m reviewing here is the 16GB WiFi.

Packaging: I’m only mentioning it, because it was impressive. I’d say it was on par with the quality of the iPad packaging.  An inner box slides out of an outer shell, and the TouchPad is well cushioned and separated from the accessories.  The accessories are under a flap, and also divided from each other.

Accessories: You get a USB cable and a power adapter.  The power adapter is big. . in fact, it’s a bigger then the old-style plastic 35-mm film canisters, and the same shape.  The outlet prongs fold into the cylinder, but it’s still BIG.  If you’re packing light, it’ll be frustrating that the adapter is this big.

The actual quality of both is nice, and it seems like they went out of their way to ensure this.  I bet someone in mgmt said, “OMG, we have to justify the cost of this mediocore product, make everything it comes with look like Bentley made it”.

Device: The TouchPad itself, in my opinion, is of a lower quality than both the iPad 1 and 2.  The chassis is plastic, and the buttons are “ok”.  It’s very similar to the design of the iPhone 3G, which, in my opinion, is also of inferior quality compared to the iPhone 2.5G, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPad 2.   I’ve heard rumors folks are having issues with cracking around the speakers and bottom port, and I believe it.  The design and build quality doesn’t instill the same confidence I have in other portable electronics.  That said, compared to Chinese import cheapo tablets in the $90 – $200 range, this thing is tank.

The screen is gorgeous.  No flaws here whatsoever in my limited play session.  Color rendition is good, brightness is good, viewing angle is good.  Job well done here.  The speakers are also pretty good.  I fired up Pandora and had no complaints.  I think the “beats” name is a bit of a stretch here, and I wonder how much better it could have sounded if they spent the money on the speakers instead of the licensing.  Regardless, it’s better than expected for the size of the device, and loud enough for quiet to moderately noisy environments if it’s right in front of you.

OS/Interface: Wow, such mixed feelings here. . .   I love the way multitasking is handled, and I love that it handles flash, but it feels sluggish and scrolling often pauses or stutters.  Speaking of flash, it did leave me thinking, “wtf Apple, just gimme Flash already”.  99% of the flash I  surfed to worked just fine and didn’t bog the device any more than other pages.  C’mon Apple, make it happen :)

Settings, App mgmt, and customization are all poorly implemented.  To be fair, some of the settings are easily adjusted, but most are buried intuitively leaving you feeling like you’re running Windows 3.11 all over again.  Seriously HP, is this the best you could do?

Media: This was a big fail for me.  Admittedly I spent very little time with it, but I copied an H.264 movie to it that I’ve successfully watched on my iPhone, iPad, Samsung Smart TV, Windows Media Center, VLC, etc., and the TouchPad choked.  I’m sure if I re-encoded it, it’d be fine, but that’s a real pain in the ass if you just want to get some movies on there for the kids before running out the door.  I hear there’s an app that’s a lot more flexible around media types, but I wasn’t dropping any coin on apps with Android on the horizon.

Final Thoughts: This thing is a STEAL at $99.99.  If you see one, buy it.  The original price tag was not realistic, not with the current polish of this device.  The most I would have paid if I was in the market for another tablet and it wasn’t fire-sale’d is probably about $250.  That’ll change if cyanogen is successful with their Android port.  It easily adds another $50 to $100 to what I’d pay, and I’ve got my fingers crossed I’m reviewing this same tablet again in a month or two with Android on it, much more favorably.

HP TouchPad – ORDER FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, FAIL

So I ended up ordering . . I believe 8 total of the HP TouchPads from:

Barnes & Noble
CDW
Insight

*ALL* my orders ended up cancelled.  This is a bit surprising since my first order with Insight was placed within 1 minute of the price decrease.  I think they must have sold out BEFORE they decreased the price.  My guess is that all of the above retailers don’t deplete stock until a human verifies/releases each order, OR the system automatically POSTS the credit card transaction.  Given the ridiculous amount of transactions these companies were doing during the rush, what usually occurs automagically was probably stopped by safety checks on the number of transactions, or raw amt. of revenue etc.  Once humans are involved in moving things forward, minutes and seconds very easily turn into hours and days.

It looks like the best bet for getting one of these at this point is probably through HP Directly.  They currently show OUT OF STOCK, but based on their tweets and sign-up page, it seems they do expect to get more in.

So, do you trust their notify page?  Well, I honestly do believe when they get stock, and verify orders are able to be completed, they’ll notify everyone.  That said, you can’t just immediately send emails to hundreds of thousands of people, and even if you could, greylisting and other limiters can often prevent you from receiving the email for a while.

By the time you get your notification, stock may again be depleted, for good.

What I’ve done is put together a very simple shell script that checks HP’s site for changes, and notifies me via email.  The email address I’m using is a “pushed” Exchange email, so I get notified immediately.

I’m pasting the script below, but please understand I do so with ZERO warranty, etc.   I don’t claim to be an expert in bash or scripting, and I’m sure there’s a better way to accomplish the same task.  Feel free to share in the comments if you’ve got a better way, but for me, this script DOES WORK, so I’m happy with it :)

To use this, you will need a Linux box with a bash shell, curl, bc, and the ability to send outgoing messages with sendmail locally.  If you can’t send outgoing email, the script will still alert you via the terminal that something has changed.

Here it is:

#!/bin/bash

#The URL to check for change
URL_TO_CHECK=”http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/can.do?landing=rts_tablet&category=rts_tablet&catLevel=1&storeName=storefronts”

#Number of seconds to wait between checks
FREQUENCY=”20″

#The phrase to look for on the page
PHRASE=”outofstock”

#The number of times the phrase occurs on the page with no change
OCCURENCES=”4″

#The subject to use for the alert email
ALERT_SUBJECT=”HP TABLET PORTAL CHANGED STATUS”

#The email address to send alerts to
ALERT_ADDRESS=”youremail@yourdomain.com”

# DO NOT EDIT BELOW THIS POINT
stop=no
iteration=1

while [ $stop = no ]

do

status=$(curl -s $URL_TO_CHECK | grep “$PHRASE” | wc -l)

if [ $status = $OCCURENCES ]
then
echo Iteration $iteration: NO CHANGE
sleep $FREQUENCY
else
echo “POSSIBLE CHANGE DETECTED, RE-CHECKING IN 30 SECONDS”
sleep 30
status_verify=$(curl -s $URL_TO_CHECK | grep “$PHRASE” | wc -l)
echo $status_verify

if [ $status_verify = $OCCURENCES ]
then
echo “FALSE ALARM, RESUMING NORMAL CHECKS”
else

echo CHANGED STATUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
echo “Subject: $ALERT_SUBJECT
$URL_TO_CHECK” | sendmail $ALERT_ADDRESS
sleep 5

echo CHANGED STATUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
echo “Subject: $ALERT_SUBJECT
$URL_TO_CHECK” | sendmail $ALERT_ADDRESS
sleep 5

echo CHANGED STATUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
echo “Subject: $ALERT_SUBJECT
$URL_TO_CHECK” | sendmail $ALERT_ADDRESS
stop=yes
fi
fi
iteration=$(echo $iteration + 1 | bc)
done

The script goes to this URL:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/can.do?landing=rts_tablet&category=rts_tablet&catLevel=1&storeName=storefronts

and looks for the gif image names for those “Out of stock” buttons

They occur (4) times in the page, and it expects to see them (4) times.  If that number changes, it re-checks in 30 seconds, and if it’s still something other than (4), the alert sequence begins.  You can easily change the variables at the top to check other phrases at other URL’s, and make sure you replace the “youremail@yourdomain.com” with YOUR email address.

Happy shopping!

HP TouchPad 16GB $99.99 – if you can find one!

HP is ‘getting out’ of the tablet business and is clearing out their TouchPad’s for $99.99 for the 16GB version, and $149.99 for the 32GB version.  Even with no continued support, this is a great price.  It’s tough to get a digital photo frame at this price point in this resolution.  Even if ALL you use it for is a media player or mobile web browser, $100 is well worth it.

They actually dropped the price Saturday, and I thought I missed out, but Barnes and Noble now shows in stock for the magical $99.99 price.  I ordered one last night, but now it shows:

Unable to process order. Please

call 1-877-379-0036, or

212-414-6024, if outside U.S.

I called in, and apparently they have 2,000 in stock and they’re trying to sort it out.  They could not tell me if I’d be receiving one or not.

Try your luck and order here:

http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/HP-TouchPad-Tablet-with-16GB-Memory-WiFi-12GHz-Black/e/886111788637?itm=2&usri=hp%2Btouchpad

UPDATE:

A bunch of the larger online retailers are still showing the old price and presumably do still have them in stock.  Newegg.com, for example, shows “in stock”, but has it priced at $399.99.  It’s the same story at buy.com, CDW, etc.

I guess if you’re daring you could buy one, and hope they honor the new price with a partial refund :P

UPDATE #2:

Now show’s out of stock on B&N. .  @9:45am (eastern)

UPDATE #3:

Tried to get another (since I highly doubt B&N will really be shipping mine), and ordered through CDW when they dropped their price.  I waited on hold for over an hour to confirm the order I made online (thank-you cordless speakerphone) to find out they sold out within a MINUTE of the price drop.  HA!

So, if you thought you were getting one from CDW, think again.  Someone else posted on a deal site saying one company accepted nearly 65,000 orders for the 10, ten, yes TEN they had in stock.

As usual, I wish I hadn’t wasted time on this.