Touch Pad Madness

With the announcement today that Lenovo is going to be selling a $199 7 inch touchpad called the IdeaPad A1, the $279 Galaxy Pad, and the soon to be released under $300 Amazon Android based touchpad, I think we will soon start to see all of this touchpad madness start to settle down.

I was a bit annoyed at HP for it's $99 fire sale after only trying a month, and then proclaiming it's getting out of the Laptop business. I have a room full of HP products, and sort of feel they pulled the rug out from under me; not to mention that they didn't create Vista or Win 7 drivers for my very dependable LaserJet 1000. But I think the fire sale was a helpful event that helped many of the touchpad manufacturers see the real sweet spot for selling their products.

I'm still happy with my fourth generation iPod Touch, and don't intend on getting another touch device anytime soon, but I think after the dust settles I might have to think about a larger screen. I think the non-cell connected touchscreens are really what people want especially with cell phone companies dialing back on their unlimited internet use contracts. With so much WiFi available everywhere, most of us are happy with that sort of connectivity.