The $99 tablet

A small start up announced  plans last year to build a tablet that would sell for under $100. They  even had a customer: the Indian government. Most people in the tech  business didn’t pay much attention after living through the hype of the  $99 laptop, which never emerged because the production cost of most  tablets at the time was over $300.

Little did we know that HP would prove everyone wrong with the sudden  discount of the Touchpad to $99 last weekend. Just like any other  consumer device, cost is king. Sunday morning, the line was out the door  at my local Best Buy and the stock ran out within an hour. If you still  want to buy one, good luck. Most online retailers are out of stock and  the HP website tracking availability has an interesting message posted  at the time of this blog publication: “Due  to the significant price reduction, we experienced overwhelming demand  for the product and are temporarily out of inventory.”

What are people buying for $99? With the surprise announcement last  week by HP to spin off the personal systems group (PSG) and cease all  sales of the tablets and other WebOS-based devices, the fear is that the  user will get a tablet that has few apps to download and is only good  for doing simple activities such as playing games, searching the web,  using email and accessing social media.  Coincidentally, Google’s research on tablet usage indicates those activities are how most people want to use their  tablets. Is $99 a good buy for a tablet that isn’t perfect, but is a  good product from both a hardware and software perspective? Yes, and  I’ll be buying one if more become available.

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