HP offers $50 credit to TouchPad early adopters

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Skype's before and after of its HD video calling.

(Credit: Skype)

Skype this morning put out a new update to its Mac client that brings compatibility with Apple's Mac OS X Lion, as well as HD video calling.

The jump to support Lion comes some three weeks after the release of Apple's latest Mac OS X iteration.

As for the HD video calling feature, Skype first brought that in a beta to Windows users in January of last year. The new HD quality can take advantage of FaceTime HD cameras that ship with Apple's newer iMacs and MacBook Pros. Users need to have an upload/download speed of 1.5Mbps to make use of the high definition stream, Skype says.

Video calling has become an increasingly important aspect of Skype, with the company expanding the feature to a number of mobile devices. Last week, for instance, the company bought video call support to some 17 new Android devices, adding to the number that could begin taking advantage of it in June. Video calling is also the headlining feature in Skype's recently released iPad app, which uses the dual cameras in the most recent model as an alternative to Apple's built in FaceTime feature.

HP offers $50 app credit for TouchPad early adopters.

(Credit: HP)

Hewlett-Packard is trying to make the sting of paying full price for the TouchPad a bit less painful for early adopters.

Over the weekend, HP announced that it would be offering some customers a $50 credit for the company's application marketplace, the App Catalog. The credit is available to those who bought the TouchPad in the U.S. between July 1 and August 4.

HP's TouchPad has been having difficulty competing against the leader in the tablet space, Apple's iPad. Last week, the company announced that it was offering an "instant rebate" on the TouchPad of $50, dropping the price of the tablet down to $449.99 and $549.99 for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively.

That was quickly followed by a $100 discount off the original launch price from Friday to Sunday to help spur demand for its device.

Related stories:
• CNET review of HP TouchPad
• HP TouchPad gets $50 rebate, OTA update
• Get a 16GB HP TouchPad tablet for $379.99

However, by dropping the price of the tablet, HP caught some flak from customers who were displeased by its decision to drop the price of the TouchPad so soon.

But HP hasn't been the only company trying to put out fires over pricing. Earlier this month, Nintendo apologized to early adopters of its 3DS portable after announcing that it would drop the price of the device from $249.99 to $169.99 starting on August 12. To make it right, Nintendo said that it would offer early adopters 20 free games from its Virtual Console.

HP's App Catalog credit is good through the end of the year. Customers who bought the device before the price cut will receive details in an e-mail from HP on how to use the credit.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Josh Lowensohn 09 Aug, 2011

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Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20089502-17/hp-offers-$50-credit-to-touchpad-early-adopters/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheDownloadBlog
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