

Report: Best Buy tells HP to take back its TouchPads - redial
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/best-buy-wants-to-give-up-on-hp-touchpad-has-sold-fewer-than-25000-units.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

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commandar
I think the TouchPad is a cautionary tale that exemplifies something Apple
does right:

Don't ship broken hardware.

I have a tech journalist friend who knew I was extremely interested in the
TouchPad prior to launch, and let me play with his review unit for a bit. I
was ready to drop $500 on one at launch, and walked away crushingly
disappointed. The software clearly wasn't ready and with the product launch
only a few days off, it was clear that HP was pushing this thing out the door
too soon.

Here's the thing - I could tell that the problems were software-related and
could be fixed by HP down the road. But HP went from a willing customer with
$500 cash in hand, to one that two months later says "eh, maybe I'll pick one
up if I catch one of those $350 sales." And I'm sure it's cost them sales
since my tl;dr when people ask me about it is "absolutely brilliant interface,
awful performance. I wouldn't buy one yet."

If HP had left the TouchPad in the incubator another couple of months and
sorted out the performance issues _before_ kicking the thing out the door, the
reception would have been very different. I really, really wanted to like the
TouchPad, and HP blew it.

You don't get do-overs on first impressions. Apple gets that. If the rest of
their competition would figure this out and push out _complete_ products
rather than rush them out on an arbitrary time scale, Apple would be a bit
less dominant than they are now.

~~~
mgkimsal
Amazingly, webOS/palm _got_ a do-over, in the form of HP buying them.

"We're too small to compete" was the Palm motto towards the end, and HP buying
them was seen by the faithful as a way of "getting it right" - more money and
resources behind them, they'll be able to _really_ get webOS out there.

And they did _the exact same stuff_ they'd done two years earlier.

Announce and briefly demo a product at start of the year? Check

Delay getting SDK to developers? Check

Ship poor hardware with buggy software to retailers later than anticipated?
Check

WHAT THE HELL? The entire webOS unit got a do-over, and still hosed it, with
the budget/muscle of one of the largest companies behind it. Of course, that
doesn't mean HP actually was really supporting it as much as people expected.

The TouchPad (and webOS stuff in general under HP) seems to have been treated
about the same as every other model of HP laptop/desktop rollout they do. Just
another SKU on the balance sheet, it'll be on the shelf for a few months, then
retired and shifted to overseas support.

Amazingly infuriating to watch company after company claim to want to be a
player in the mobile/tablet space, and fail continuously against Apple. It's
far less that Apple's doing so much right, but everyone else keeps getting it
so wrong, _even_ with successful competitors to copy (this isn't revolutionary
groundbreaking stuff any more, launching a tablet).

~~~
Osiris
I find it amazing that people haven't learned the Apple lesson yet. Apple is
doing well specifically because it doesn't release a product until it's
perfect. They put a lot of thought and effort into every aspect of every
device.

Why is it that companies like HP think that getting it out the door is more
important that putting out a polished product? Just look at the white iPhone
4. Apple wouldn't release it until it was perfect, despite the fact that
people were knocking down the door begging for it.

I've never owned an Apple product, but if I were going to get a tablet it
would be an iPad. Everything else is just a cheap imitation and no one has
proven to be anything other than that. I was really hoping the TouchPad would
be the one device that could finally compete on polish and style with the
iPad.

~~~
iaskwhy
Maybe they are reading too much Hacker News and the "ship ship ship" we preach
over here. I know I have heard some companies thinking like that without
realising it's not the best strategy for every company.

~~~
mgkimsal
It's a good observation. So many web startups think "ship early!" works for
everything, and it doesn't. Certainly not hardware. Yes, for a website, where
you can change the system in 5 minutes if you find a small mistake, or you can
reindex a db and fix perf issues - yes, get it out there and validate and
iterate. Hardware is a totally different beast.

~~~
iaskwhy
There are many reasons why you shouldn't just ship and with tablets like the
TouchPad there are at least two good reasons: the hardware (for the reasons
you said) and the price (which is expensive for something that is not unique
or particular innovative).

You can keep the features to a low though, just make sure they are tight. Like
the Kindle.

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acabal
I think the problem is that people still don't care about or want tablet
computers; they care about and want iPads. All the companies jumping on the
tablet bandwagon forgot what happened to 95% of the mp3 players that sprang up
to compete with the iPod.

~~~
canistr
That's not really a 'problem' though if people understand what they want. What
it really means is that HP needs to step up their game on all fronts to make a
product and compel people to buy it.

I mean, I tried the TouchPad. It's good in a lot of ways but mediocre in other
ways. It's a lot like how the G1 launched. Die-hards bought it, the tech-savvy
liked it but weren't 'flocking' to it, and the average consumer just thought
of it as another electronic device. HP needs something like a 'Droid' campaign
to really spark interest in their products. You have to make it appear cool.
Unfortunately, HP has never been able to do that and they're only just
learning about the cool-factor with Beats by Dre.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>HP needs something like a 'Droid' campaign to really spark interest in their
products.

I see a lot of Touchpad, Playbook and Xoom ads on TV. Atleast the Xoom ones
seem to be on the level of the Droid ads(it's Motorola again, of course). The
ads seem ok and cool but if the current sales figures are something to go by,
don't seem to be very effective. As I said in another comment, it's easier to
get people to buy a phone when their old ones gets too old or when the
contract expires but it's hard to push people to a completely new kind of
device where the use case is harder for the average consumer to see.

~~~
canistr
The way I see it is that Apple's commercials and most of the Droid commercials
were compelling, head-turners. They were much more interesting. Whenever
either of those commercials played, I wanted to watch them. I can't say the
same thing of the TouchPad, Playbook, or Xoom ads. This quality of marketing
were a part of what made the Droid and iProducts so successful.

~~~
jackson71
\- The Xoom and Droid commercials are nothing but derivative, dystopian
futurist fluff, and the Verizon Android (read: non-Droid) commercials
involving their retail outlets are seriously contrived crap speaking to
easily-swayed lowest-common denominators in the crowd.

\- The Touchpad's commercials are boring and tell me nothing about the device.
Like others are saying, they tell me jack crap about the device, and the
Russell Brand commercials that actually do? They might not be my tea, but at
least they have some personality (comedic value debated). Haven't seen them on
TV. Brilliant strategy there, HP!

\- Apple's commercials are so well-received that rolling a commercial out
based on a _feature_ (see: Facetime) can generate sales because they know just
who to market to and, by focusing on one device per form factor, have a
history of trusted quality through said long-term focus on each of them.
People actually know the models as opposed to the ton of "ManufacturerName
Droidbot AspirationalPhraseHere" models being cranked out. They know the
history. And, well, Apple's products "Just work" 99% of the time.

Disclosure: I own an Android tablet and an HP Touchpad. Fanboys amuse me.

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abcd_f
If tapping an icon on a home screen takes the tablet a fraction of a second
just to provide visual feedback for that, I'm sorry, but this is simply not a
good tablet. Not anymore, not with iPad in the picture.

~~~
j_col
If you apply the 3.0.2 patch (an over the air update), it resolves most of the
performance issues with webOS on the tablet. Unfortunately all of the online
reviews were done using 3.0, so the misconception that webOS on the Touchpad =
slow has stuck.

~~~
huhtenberg
I saw TouchPad at BestBuy last night and it was sluggish as hell. I don't
really care if it had a patch applied or not. They had exactly one chance to
make a great first impression and they failed. We can point finger at whoever,
but what I saw pretty much explains why _TouchPad did not gather interest with
BestBuy buyers_.

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aaront
This is a known issue to HP. It really stinks. The demo units aren't even
using 3.0, they're using a special demo build.

~~~
Avenger42
I understand the reasoning behind this (make the demos as cool as possible!)
but I think you'd run a serious risk of high returns - if you take it home and
it doesn't run as well as the one in the store, you're going to mess with it
for a few days, get increasingly frustrated and eventually take it back.

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thwarted
Is there something interesting in the comments to the original article? The
link seems to take you right to the comments (at least on a mobile device),
the actual arstechnia post is at:

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/best-buy-
wants-t...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/best-buy-wants-to-
give-up-on-hp-touchpad-has-sold-fewer-than-25000-units.ars)

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SwellJoe
I played with a Nook Color at B&N a couple of days ago. If I were to buy a
tablet, that's the one I'd buy. It's dirt cheap ($249), seems reasonably fast,
and can be hacked into a real Android tablet (not a reasonable thing for a
normal consumer to do, but it wouldn't be a problem for me). But, the things I
could think of to use it for, I already have a Kindle and a Nexus One and a
netbook for...so, I opted not to add more electronics crap to my very small
house. Maybe the next generation Nook Color will convince me that a tablet is
something I need/want.

My point is that the price of the HP was _obviously_ wrong. It's not an Apple
product...people don't expect to pay Apple prices. There's an assumption
(right or wrong) that Apple imposes a stiff Apple tax on every product they
sell, so I expect any non-Apple product to be much cheaper and have better
specs. When that expectation is not met, I feel like the non-Apple product is
over-priced. Apparently the TouchPad also sucks, while the iPad is apparently
awesome, which makes the TouchPad an even harder sell.

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orky56
That's a really good case for the mindset of a hacker. Buy a cheaper product
that is hackable and customize the experience. With the current tablet wars,
iPad is winning since it doesn't require hacking to achieve a high standard of
features, performance, and user experience. This aligns with mainstream
customers which is the giant demographic every company is trying to obtain.

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j_col
Lots of discussion about this over on Precental.net about this today:
[http://www.precentral.net/hp-touchpad-selling-poorly-best-
bu...](http://www.precentral.net/hp-touchpad-selling-poorly-best-buy-
retailers-general#comments)

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mortenjorck
Shipping too soon and getting lukewarm reviews for it may have been a factor
here, but I think the biggest one is in marketing: HP has never had a
convincing story for the TouchPad.

The TouchPad campaign still has yet to make a solid case for choosing WebOS
over iOS (or even Android). WebOS is a more flexible environment than iOS, and
it's more consistent and seamless than Android; why can't HP marketing figure
out how to vocalize that?

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harold
I looked at the Touchpad at the local Best Buy. I was interested in buying
one, but I was ultimately disappointed after using it for a bit. Unlike the
iPad, which looks and feels like it was designed by a few people that might
actually want to use it themselves, the TouchPad looks and feels like it was
designed by committee.

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vbone
I think the numbers are suspect. And note that the source is anonymous so take
things with a grain of salt.

~~~
j_col
Yep they are very suspect, and just so happen to be right on the verge of HP
publishing their revenue figures, so may be some market shenanigans at play.

~~~
RexRollman
I guess we'll know if HP only talks about shipped unit and not sold, or
activated, units.

~~~
jackson71
It's a conspiracy!

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canistr
If the TouchPad, with all its geek cred, is only able to move 25,000 units,
then it really makes me wonder how well the other tablets are doing. I went to
Best Buy (note: this is Canada) the other day and they had a huge number of
tablets in their tablet section. The TouchPad, Xoom, Acer's Iconia, the Galaxy
Tab, and various Windows 7-based tablets. If the TouchPad has only been able
to move that many units, then there's no way that Best Buy can be happy with
any of its other customers. While I see a lot of people playing around with
the tablets, very few people are buying them regardless of brand (Apple
excluded, obviously).

~~~
mgkimsal
I'd loved to have played with some of them at my local store, but as is the
case with almost most consumer PC stuff, the units are not on.

The Apple display section at our local Best Buys are always loaded with
functioning units that are open for people to explore - not locked down with
crappy "BUY GEEK SQUAD SERVICE!" screen savers.

The table with all the tablets at multiple Best Buy stores I've been in to
recently are all filled with multiple tablets that are just sitting there with
black screens. Not plugged in, not running on batteries, not in demo mode.
Just... sitting there.

If Best Buy sold TVs like they sell tablets, they'd have 3 LG units running
full color shows in HD with surround sound, and 85 empty screens just hanging
on the wall, then they'd be sending all the TVs back to Vizio, Mitsubishi,
Sony, etc, complaining that they're not selling.

~~~
canistr
Agreed. It's the same thing with the way they sell laptops or phones. Why
leave dumb units lying around? Why would anyone ever buy a device that they
haven't tried? Best Buy (as well as other stores) need to have well-
functioning devices turned on and available for customers to try.

Additionally, they need their employees to go around and reset the devices to
ensure a proper functioning system instead of the ones bogged down by
apps/content downloaded by random kids onto the device.

~~~
bigwally
Even going to Best Buy to try a unit does next to nothing. Pretty much
everything that they sell has a flat battery, is stuck on a screen or
suffering some other issue.

Except of course for the Apple display. All working. All looking good. All the
time.

~~~
tjakab
I'm going to guess that Apple's contract with Best Buy probably has specific
requirements on how their products are displayed in every store.

~~~
mgkimsal
Probably.

But if that's the case, why does _no other company_ seem to use this approach?

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yequalsx
The TouchPad didn't pass my two usability tests for tablets. I opened a book
and tried to lookup the definition of a word. I think it was the TouchPad that
opened a browser window and sent me to a Google search for the word's
definition. I also opened two tabs for the browser. I couldn't figure out how
to close a tab. If it doesn't pass these two simple tests then it's not worth
buying.

The iPad is the only tablet that passes both tests in terms of performing the
tasks easily.

~~~
j_col
Hmmm, the Touchpad doesn’t have tabs in its browser, it opens up a new browser
card which is an entirely different experience, so I’m not sure how you could
have carried out this test?

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jneal
I think they should take them back, don't get me wrong, but who's the sales
manager for best buy that decided these would be a good buy, and that they
could compete with the iPad in price when they can't even come close in
quality or performance?

~~~
danilocampos
In retail, these folks are called buyers.

Best Buy has plenty of long-term relationships with manufacturers. Any time
you see fancy merchandising in the store, say an endcap with fancy graphics
pimping the latest Whirlpool front loading washer, it's because the
manufacturer has paid for that positioning.

So it's entirely possible that HP made a merchandising deal with Best Buy to
promote their new product – and that the terms for the deal included some sort
of buy back provision to mitigate the store's risk. Even absent such a
provision, HP needs retail distribution channels for their business to work.
It's in their interest to keep their partners happy and not leave them holding
the bag on an experimental flop of a product.

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thought_alarm
I think ten years from now we will look back at this time period and be
baffled by the incredible amount and variety of complete junk that was dumped
on the market to try and capitalize on the "tablet craze".

Sent from my iPad

~~~
joshu
Cambrian explosion.

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RexRollman
I don't know how everyone else here feels about it but I have yet to see a
TouchPad commercial that makes me want one. I think Apple has done a lot of
good for themselves in the way they advertise the iPad.

