HP Offers Refund to European Touchpad, Pre3 Buyers
by Andrew Cunningham on September 14, 2011 5:25 PM ESTThe HP Touchpad's troubled saga continues: the company's European arm is now offering partial refunds to anyone who brought the tablet at anything other than the bargain-basement fire sale price. The refund is for the difference between that clearance price and the price that the buyer originally paid, and the same courtesy is also being extended to buyers of the Pre3 smartphone, which never made it to the US.
Some retailers, like Best Buy in the US, have already been offering similar partial refunds to anyone who bought the Touchpad before HP pulled the plug, but others (including Amazon) have referred unhappy buyers to HP itself. This gesture should help to ameliorate any remaining ill will generated by the Touchpad and Pre3's quick discontinuation.
At this time, there's no word on whether HP is planning on extending this offer to the US or other territories.
Source: HP
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tipoo - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
They had so much potential with this. The hype over the fire sale shows that people were interested in buying the Touchpad, it was just too expensive. Instead of selling them for 100 dollars each and losing money on each sale, they could have sold them at-cost at around 300, I'm sure that would cause lots of enthusiasm too. Then, they could make that up slowly on apps and development tools as the market share rose to something substantial.But hey, I'm just some dude on the internet, I'm sure the people in charge of HP know what they are doing....Like breaking off their PC unit, which is still the most popular PC unit in the world...Doh.
Sigh. They should just sell WebOS's team to HTC or someone for a pittance and then proceed in killing themselves as they are.
bigboxes - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Agreed. WebOS is a joy to use. I totally agree that is HP just sold them at cost it would allow them gain some traction while they worked on closing the gap with the next generation hardware. Let's pray that HTC buys WebOS and we can see some serious hardware sporting this tremendous operating system.Sigh indeed.
Zoomer - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
Yup.I think all the suboptimal decisions (for HP) are the result of their CEO, or his subordinates subtly giving him the finger. Wonder who made the decision on the $100 price point?
SpartanJet - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I would not have purchased the Touchpad at any other price. I struggled to think of ways I would actually use one of these over my laptop or desktop (especially one that doesn't have Netflix or my cable company video) and now that I have one I know I have no use for it other than a rest room surfer. I can't stand the browser in WebOS, and although I think the OS has some potential there are so few apps I really don't use this device even over my Sensation.Makaveli - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I don't know about you, but this Touchpad is probably the best thing i've bought in 2011.Once overclocked and patched up its runs great. I've found myself more casually surfing on the touchpad than even my i7 desktop as of late. I can easily jump in to bed and come to anandtech or techreport or Hardocp and do some late night reading or jump into a forum thread or two and its been delightful to use.
My job provides me with an Ipad which I never use but side by side Multitasking blows away IOS any day of the week. And yes you have more apps on the apple side but I already picked up quite a few homebrew apps and some from the HP store which has kept me happy. Picking up the advanced browser for $1.99 was a great update also.
I don't need 1,000,000 million apps with half of them being useless the other half similar to other version etc etc.
I even have my touchpad setup to my work exchange server and I prefer reading and responding to emails from the pad over my blackberry.
Another bonus is when some of my novice friends come over I can give them the touchpad to do some quick surfing and they can stay the hell away from my i7 desktop which I don't like anyone else using so its another win for me.
This thing also has pretty good battery life and the picture quality of the screen is outstanding. This is my first experience with WEB OS and I felt inlove instantly.
piiman - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
I agree with all you said but I'm lost as to whats advanced about the "Advanced browser" :-) other than tabs I don't see it doing anything the other browser doesn't do.Makaveli - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
You are right it isn't really Advanced but its still better than the stock browser.I would love to have a version of chrome or firefox or even opera running on it.
bentmusic - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
I feel the same way about Pre and Touch. I went to the HP website and there found a way to email the President of HP not that I think my lowly email will do any good but if everyone did the same maybe HP would change their minds and bring back the best devices on the market. Go to http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/ceo/index.... and send Léo Apotheker the president of HP an email letting him know how much you like the product. You never know they might just change their minds.