HP slashed the price of its webOS-powered TouchPad over the weekend by $100 in an effort to give the barely month-old tablet computer a second wind.
The TouchPad, which received so-so reviews upon its launch and has already received a software update, is being offered for $399 (16GB) and $499 (32GB) over the weekend by HP online and through its extensive network of retailers.
You can knock another $15 off the price after shipping cost is added in if you buy the 16GB model from Woot.com.
Smaller rebates were already popping up last week.
TouchPad’s strengths include support for multitasking out of the gate, along with support for enterprise-friendly features such as Exchange ActiveSync and VPNs. Weakness include fewer apps supported than tablets running iOS and Android, and concerns have emerged about slow app loading times.
The TouchPad has a 9.7-inch screen, a 1.2-GHz Snapdragon dual-core processor and Wi-Fi support (a 4G model for use on AT&T’s network has also been announced).
HP is competing in a market against leader Apple, which sells its 16GB iPad 2 for $499 and a 32GB model for $599. Apple owns about three-quarters of the market, having sold 6 million iPads in Q1, according to Canalys Research, and most of the other tablets run Google’s Android OS.
