I have a confession to make, I’m a history buff. I’m a sucker for historical novels, love a good period drama and, probably most importantly, I read history when I was at university. So it’s really no surprise that as soon as the HP TouchPad made the transition from current product to relic of the digital past, I absolutely had to run out and buy one. Oh, yeah, that and the $100 price tag, which you’d have to be a dodo to ignore.
Don’t get me wrong, I did feel slightly ridiculous and a little embarrassed about it. I did wonder to myself whether I was feeling entirely sane. Because, you see, as a technology journalist, I had snorted and rolled my eyes with the best of them whenever an HP TouchPad ad had interrupted my History Channel programming.
I had snickered and said to myself “there is no way in hell anyone with an ounce of tech savvy is going to buy that tablet. Priced the same as an entry level iPad? Or a comparable Android? No chance. I don’t care how many girls from Glee they pull in to promote the damn thing”
But then came the TouchPad’s premature death and digital cremation – the fire sale.
And boy did it burn bright. Within hours of the announcement that units of the TouchPad were being sold off for $99, Twitter was already ablaze with people who had impulsively bought one. Or three. It was a deal too good to miss, and everyone – from nerd to normal – agreed.
In just an hour, the TouchPad had seemingly sold out online and I – having decided to finish watching my World War I documentary – had missed out. Time waits for no man. “Don’t be upset, it’s a fricking TouchPad,” I told myself. “You wouldn’t even know what to do with it. It has no apps, it’s heavy, it’s got an operating system that seems to have just gone extinct, and you already own three tablets. Use some sense woman!”
But despite my rationalizations, I felt a creeping sense of panic in the pit of my stomach. Perhaps this was the deal of the year and I’d missed it. Perhaps the tablet really was as jaunty, whimsical and swipey as advertised. Perhaps it would be cheaper than buying my parents a proper digital photo frame for Christmas this year. Goddamit! Why hadn’t I been quicker off the mark?
I resolved to get up early and hit the yellow Brick and Mortar road. After all, every report in the tech press claims TouchPads have been languishing in BestBuy store rooms since launch. Piling up, gathering dust. No problem, I told myself, I’ll be a good Samaritan and save this now near extinct species, even if it meant getting up before 8am on a Saturday.
I almost experienced a moment of clarity when the alarm clock woke me the following morning, but it soon evaporated back into dreamland, leaving me resolute to carry out my mission. After all, it had been a crap week, and I felt the entire success of my weekend mood depended on this. If I could buy a cheap TouchPad, my life would be better – though why, I had no idea.
My strategy had been to avoid the nerds. Not that I couldn’t take on five of them at a time and still come out a winner, but I was feeling tetchy and my tolerance for technophiles that early in the morning was low. No, I would fight it out at Costco, I reasoned, adjusting the razor blade in my pony tail and limbering up for a struggle with my neighborhood’s finest.
I arrived at Costco five minutes before it opened. The line of fat families with kids snarling from inside shopping trolleys already extended around the corner. As the doors flung open, it was like a supermarket sweep race to the electronics aisle. Elbows out, I ran, shoving and biting my way to the stash of TouchPads innocently stacked up at the back. Grabbing one, I stood back and laughed maniacally. “How easy was that?!” I congratulated myself, wondering whether I should dive into the thrashing, heaving mound of flesh engulfing the last remaining few to grab another. That’s when I noticed the terrified looking sales assistant, standing with price ticker in hand, swallowing nervously. “Folks, we haven’t reduced the price of these tablets. I just called in a price check, and I’m afraid it’s still $500.”
I won’t describe the scene that followed, not just out of respect to those who abhor violence, but also because I barely saw it as I legged it to the carpark thinking “crap, crap, crap, now I’m going to have to try BestBuy!”
Luckily, BestBuy opened a whole 30 minutes later than Costco. Unluckily, there was already a queue of nosepicking nerds in my way. I went around the side and ambushed an unsuspecting blue-shirt as he emerged from a stock door. “Do you have TouchPads, man?!” I asked, almost grabbing him by the lapels. “I, I, I don’t know. I work in the cable department, but I’ll go check.” He stuttered, backing away from me fearfully. He re-emerged a few minutes later only to say “Yeah, I asked and we do have a whole bunch, but because they discontinued the OS, we can’t sell ‘em, we’re going to send them all back.”
“What are you talking about?!” I snarled. “HP hasn’t discontinued the OS, it discontinued production of the tablet, and you were selling them online for $99 until they sold out last night. Why the sudden change in policy?”
“I, I, I don’t know…I’m sorry, it’s not my decision, ma’am…” he whimpered as I growled and gave him my most disdainful look. “You could always try Walmart?” he piped up, rapidly ducking behind the safety of the door before my fist crashed into it.
No, no, I wouldn’t sink so low. I told myself. I wasn’t that desperate, yet. I resolved to get back in the car and make a last ditch attempt at Fry’s. Not that I can usually ever find what I’m looking for in that cross-between-a-car-boot-sale-and-someone’s-attic store, but, whatever. I’d give it a go, I told myself.
Fry’s had been open for 40 minutes, so I wasn’t holding out much hope as I walked in, shoulders already slumped in accepted defeat. “Do you have TouchPads?” I asked the eyeshadow queen at the store entrance. “Dishwasher?” she asked, helpfully. Sigh.
I found my way to the computer section (complete with haystack, wild west décor). “Happen to have any TouchPads, nah, didn’t think so….” I muttered to the sales guy. “actually, we do. Though an awful lot of folks seem to be wanting those this morning,” he pondered to himself. “Are they reduced?” I asked, incredulously. “Yeppers, we only have the 32GB version, but it’s down to $150,” he grinned. “I’ll take it!” I shouted, much to the alarm of the other shoppers.
As I was buying it, three members of staff and two other shoppers snapped up the last ones. “Guess you got lucky today,” Brad, the sales guy told me ringing up my new purchase. “yeppers,” I replied, handing over my credit card.
Lucky to get my hands on a TouchPad, oh the irony.
I took it home and made quick work of the unboxing, using the rest of my weekend to play with my new toy and gloat at those unable to get one on Twitter. Truth be told, aside from the lag, lack of apps and only one mediocre forward facing camera, the TouchPad is a nice device. A really nice device. The sound quality is excellent, the screen crisp, the apps that are available are high quality, the swiping functionality is almost as fun as advertised, the “woosh” sound when applications are swept away is immensely satisfying, and overall, I was happy. It was certainly the best bit of gadgetry I’d ever bought at that price point.
“It’s rather morbid watching you enthuse over the dead,” BloomBerg’s Ashlee Vance told me later that day on Twitter. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps my foray into digital necrophilia is a tad perverse. But for $150, that’s a low I’m willing to sink to.
