HP Singapore to offer refunds for previously purchased TouchPad
By Alfred Siew
Days after HP said it was junking the TouchPad, through US$99 fire sales in some markets, folks at the Singapore office have decided to offer full or partial refunds to customers here who have already pre-ordered the doomed tablet.
On Thursday evening, HP Singapore put out a notice on its Facebook page which offered buyers two options: get a full refund of the S$699 they paid or get a partial refund for the difference between their purchase price and the new price.
Buyers have until September 16 to make a choice, but it looks like many won't be rushing in yet because the new price is still yet to be revealed, as a Straits Times Digital Life report pointed out. The TouchPad though is expected to go on sale at next week's Comex tech bazaar at Suntec City.
The long-overdue tablet had earlier been touted for its WebOS operating system, which offered an alternative to the dominant Apple iPad's iOS and the up and coming Google Android Honeycomb OS sported by the likes of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Motorola Xoom.
However, a lack of traction in early sales in the United States put paid to the TouchPad's hopes of becoming a rival to the two dominant mobile OSes. Despite receiving mostly favourable reviews from some tech pundits, it has since become somewhat of a stillborn product in countries like Singapore.
After showing off the tablet to reporters here in late July, HP Singapore now faces the grim prospect of discarding it at fire sale prices the moment it hits the stores.
This will be read among Apple fans as yet another failed iPad challenger. For Android fans, if the price is right, the TouchPad's powerful hardware -- which includes a handy 1.2GHz dual-core processor and a 9.7-inch screen -- could just make for a very fine Android tablet if it could be made to run the latest version of Honeycomb.
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