[dvigilante1]

When I checked out the touchpad the first thing that came to my mind was the original sprint pre. The hardware was of a basic design with a lot of plastic feel to it. Another tablet I tried out was the Asus transformer which is $100 less. Spec wise they are both similar but what stood out to me was how thin it was, the two cameras and an hdmi output. Not to mention the design seemed stylish even if it was a somewhat iphone 4 like. How is it that Asus can have such features and price it lower the touchpad? Maybe its kind of like the car industry american made vs japanese/korean cars. Where the health care costs and other benefits add to the sticker price of american made cars.

[speedtouch]

Well, it's the first iteration of the TouchPad. There's going to be a lot of deficiencies in the device as a first-gen unit. Just as Windows 95 was the first iteration of the truly GUI-based Windows, even though it was still built upon DOS. It was very clunky. Windows 98 was the second iteration and was far better. I expect to see the same evolution with the TP 2. At least...I hope so. The problem with webOS has always been the hardware.

[mosdl]

HP had to pay all those developers to build webOS 3, Asus took Google's work and made some changes?

Also, calling windows 95 the first truly GUI-based windows is harsh, 3.1(1) worked great for the time.

[rsanchez1]

If HP plans to get away with the "it costs us money to pay developers" excuse, they better step it up, fast. These Android tablets will continue to come out at least $100 cheaper than the Touchpad, and since the Touchpad matches the iPad in price, I wonder which one people will pick... (hint: it's not the Touchpad)

Look at it the other way: if they overprice the Touchpad and miss sales targets by a lot, then how are they going to pay those developers? They would be taking a much bigger hit than if they had priced it right, met sales targets, and had the money to pay developers without taking a loss.

Besides, the team working on the Touchpad is so small, unless they pay everyone working on it million-dollar salaries then they wouldn't be taking a hit pricing it lower.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre using Forums

[lukehale]

Since when has price for electronics (or a lot of other things for that matter) been based only on the sum of it's parts? It has always been based on what the company selling it thinks it's "value" to be. Doesn't mean you have to agree with it of course, but it's not just about specs. The value of webOS needs to be counted also, and in my opinion anyway, that alone makes it worth the premium over Android. Putting Android on a device costs ZERO, which is part of the beauty of Android for manufacturers, they didn't have to spend $1.2 billion for it like HP did buying Palm. $1.2 billion is obviously a lot more than 0.

Like I said, if you don't think it's worth it, that is your choice of course, but only time will tell if the masses agree with that assessment. I know there are many here who have already gladly spent the money instead of going with the more "bang-for-your-buck" Android tablets. Of course this is a webOS site, so that should be expected.

[lukehale]

Also the iPad 2 cost to build is about $326 for the 32GB. The Touchpad 32GB version is $328. Obviously HP isn't using cheap components. Unless of course you think the iPad is lower quality than these Android tablets too.

[speedtouch]

HP had to pay all those developers to build webOS 3, Asus took Google's work and made some changes?

Also, calling windows 95 the first truly GUI-based windows is harsh, 3.1(1) worked great for the time.

You're right. I meant to say that Windows 95 was the first all-encompassing Windows OS. Meaning, you didn't have to load DOS first, then load the Windows GUI. Sorry, I should have been more precise.

[mhunterjr]

The touchpad has more expensive components...

[GodShapedHole]

Also the iPad 2 cost to build is about $326 for the 32GB. The Touchpad 32GB version is $328. Obviously HP isn't using cheap components. Unless of course you think the iPad is lower quality than these Android tablets too.

Not only aren't they using cheap parts, they also aren't using cheap manufacturing processes. The panel, for instance, is NOT simply glued to the glass screen - as in the iPad2 - which is cheap, quick and guarantees that you need to buy a new screen and panel every time something breaks.

[natepre509]

You're right. I meant to say that Windows 95 was the first all-encompassing Windows OS. Meaning, you didn't have to load DOS first, then load the Windows GUI. Sorry, I should have been more precise.

OT yeah, but had to correct the mistake.

Have you not heard of NT ? Windows NT 3.1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2 full versions came out before the release of win95.

And windows95 did run on top of DOS in case you didn't notice. It was also not uncommon to launch linux from DOS via loadlin back in the day.

Windows XP (based on a newer NT kernel) was the first MS consumer OS that didn't leverage DOS.

[bobsentell]

To say that Android costs nothing is a bit inaccurate. Android is an open-source OS that has no costs, sure. But each individual manufacturer still has to have programmers to make the thing work on their own independent hardware.

Even PC hardware manufacturers have to provide the drivers for the Windows OS to work with even though Windows is a pretty complete Os to begin with. So most of these hardware companies are going to have software guys.

That being said, coming up with a few drivers to slap a premade OS onto your device costs a lot less than building the entire OS.