Thanks to deep discounting, the HP TouchPad has gone from a struggling iPad competitor to the must-have gadget of the moment. People are snapping them up so fast that it's breaking HP's servers, and many major retailers have reportedly run out of stock already, though HP is promising more TouchPads are on the way (from warehouses, not production lines, which have been halted). People clearly want them badly, but… why exactly? That's the question of our poll.
On the surface, the TouchPad's newfound popularity is obvious: $99 is the "sweet spot" in electronics pricing, the point where it becomes almost an impulse buy. We witnessed this with Apple TV last year: When Apple turned the device into a bare-bones media streamer and slashed the price to $99, people finally started buying the device en masse. Before that, adoption was so slow that Steve Jobs called the product a mere "hobby."
At the same time, the whole idea of owning a tablet is still in question. The iPad's popularity is indisputable, but no other tablet has come close to matching it in sales or market share. Darren Murph from Engadget recently condemned tablets as productivity devices, saying they're not really the "third device" that marketers and analysts claim they are. In short, no one really needs a tablet.
The frenzy over the TouchPad fire sale certainly shows people want them, though. Which brings us to the question: Why are people buying them? If you've recently bought a TouchPad, or if you plan to buy one, we want to know your thinking behind the decision. Please answer our poll, and leave your thoughts in the comments.