The white HP TouchPad, which became available in Europe yesterday, is now available here in the US. It seems like someone in HP didn’t get the memo that the webOS ecosystem will be abandoned. Either that, or HP figures it’s got the stock, might as well ship—hopefully someone will be oblivious enough to buy it. The 64GB white model showed up today on HP’s USA website priced at $599.
It’s not a bad price for a tablet of that capacity, but for a platform with such an uncertain future, you’d have to be a real webOS loyalist or a collector of antiques to be rushing for one of these. Compared to the original HP TouchPad, which came out no more than seven weeks ago, this white version has a faster 1.5GHz Qualcomm dual-core processor. The white finish, however, is only on the backside as the front face remains black.
HP made the announcement of discontinuing the webOS ecosystem yesterday during the company’s quarterly earnings call. The Veer, Pre3, and TouchPad were first introduced back in February with the TouchPad only recently launched and the Pre3 not even available yet. If HP waited out past the holiday season, they could perhaps offload more stock, but thankfully for consumers, they saved us some money by delivering the news early. Too bad for HP investors though, as the company’s shares took a dive following the announcement.