hp Archives

Home » hp » Page 9

15 years ago, at the home of the blue shirts

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 20, 2011best buy, hp, Packard Bell, panasonic, pentium ii, RCA, samsung, VCR

Consumerist had some fun today at the expense of a Best Buy ad from September 15, 1996.

Here’s the kind of price deflation we’ve seen in 15 years.
Read more

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

dfarq.homeip.net

Intel isn’t interested in buying HP’s PC business

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 15, 2011amd, asus, hp, intel

This week, Paul Otellini told journalists he isn’t interested in buying HP’s PC business, elaborating by saying he doesn’t want to compete with his customers.

It makes sense.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Someone needs to make a good $100 tablet

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 14, 2011April 18, 2017hp

Gizmodo writes: Someone needs to make a good $100 tablet.
I feel that pain, but it’s not going to happen this year. Or necessarily next year.

When you read the reviews of sub-$200 tablets, the biggest complaints are about the tablet being DOA, having difficulty getting one particular thing to run on it, the tablet just overall feeling cheap, or the screen. Better quality control can fix the first two things. But a good-quality capacitive touchscreen costs $63.50. For the tablet to retail for $100, it needs to cost less than $63 to make the whole tablet.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Why Amazon can’t make a Kindle in the USA

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized September 6, 2011asus, dell, hp, kindle, Western Digital

Dan Bowman sent over this ongoing series at Forbes. I’d seen the first couple of parts of it, but didn’t realize it was still ongoing. In light of new Amazon tablet rumors, it takes on new relevance.

It’s a thought-provoking look at the state of U.S. manufacturing today, and the state of management. I don’t know if the author thinks it’s too late to reverse this decline, but presumably no. Otherwise he wouldn’t be writing it, probably.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

So Amazon’s tablet is a go

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 5, 2011September 5, 2011android, apple, Apple Ipad, atari, christmas, commodore, hp, ipad, kindle, TSA

Reports of Amazon’s tablet plans are trickling out. Basically, it’s going to be a 7-inch tablet running a very customized version of Android, tweaked to play media purchased from Amazon, and priced at $250, half the price of an entry-level Apple Ipad. (In English, we capitalize the first letter of proper nouns, and my native language is English, not C++, if you’re wondering.) Techcrunch and The Register have some of the details. The name: Amazon Kindle. The release date: end of November.

I wouldn’t call it a can’t-miss, but it’s clear Amazon’s thought a lot of things through here.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Lessons of the HP Touchpad

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 24, 2011October 16, 20181980s, android, apple, Apple Ipad, AT&T, hp, IBM, ipad, kindle, nintendo, pc world, playstation, web os, xbox

At full price ($499 for the 16 GB model and $599 for the 32 GB model) the HP Touchpad was a colossal flop. Like AT&T’s first PC clones of the mid 1980s, it was a me-too product at a me-too price that wasn’t quite as good as the product it was imitating. So, basically, there was no reason to buy it.

At closeout prices, it became an Internet sensation. The few web sites that have it in stock can’t handle the traffic they’re getting. At $99 and $149, it’s selling like the Nintendo Wii in its glory days.

And I think there’s a significant parallel there that highlights the missed opportunity.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Oracle’s bombshell: We might buy HP

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 23, 2011acer, dell, hp, mark hurd, oracle, unix

And if the HP situation couldn’t get any weirder, Forbes speculates that Larry Ellison and Mark Hurd might attempt a takeover of HP if its share price drops far enough. HP and Oracle once were close partners, but now they hate each other.

I think it might be a little more complicated.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Psst! Want a cheap tablet?

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 19, 2011August 20, 2011android, apple, Apple Ipad, Canada, hp, ipad, kindle, nintendo, sega dreamcast, web os

HP figured out what to do with all those unsold tablets. Friday they dropped the price in Canada to $99 and $149, depending on the memory. And this weekend, they’re doing the same in the States.

They’re underpowered and they’re orphans, but at that price, I’ll bet they’ll sell.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Lenovo and IBM look back at IBM’s PC exit

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 19, 2011December 12, 20241980s, 1990s, asus, AT&T, compaq, dell, hp, IBM, lenovo, lexmark, thinkpad, web os

The Register reports that Lenovo is gloating over its purchase of IBM’s PC division and its turnaround efforts, while IBM doesn’t regret pulling out, at all, even going so far as to call the PC dead. Who’s right?

Lenovo. Though IBM was right to get out–but the PC is only as dead as the television. Old media doesn’t go away quickly. Radio was supposed to make newspapers go away, and it’s only now, 90 years later, that newsprint is hurting. The old stuff adapts and evolves and finds new uses. Some people argue that if newspapers were managed better, they wouldn’t be hurting, but that’s a different issue. Let’s talk IBM PCs.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Bombshell: HP pulls out. Of tablets and desktop PCs.

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 18, 2011November 3, 2025amiga, android, apple, Ars Technica, best buy, Dave Haynie, hp, IBM, intel, Intel Core, ipad, netbooks, web os

And speaking of duds, it looks like HP has one on their hands in their Web OS-based tablets.

Best Buy has about a quarter-million unsold tablets in their warehouse and has only managed to sell 25,000 of them. And when Woot ran a special on them, selling them for $120 off, they sold a whopping 612 of them.

And now it looks like HP is just going to discontinue Web OS altogether.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net