$99 HP TouchPad Sale High Despite Imminent Orphaning

People are still trying to get their hands on the HP TouchPad and the HP Pre 3 smartphone even though the highly discounted gadgets are being discontinued.

HP recently slashed the sale price of the TouchPad to $99, and the price of the Pre 3, which was launched last week in Europe, has been reduced to $75. The company scrapped all plans to launch the smartphone in the U.S., according to PC Mag.

The smartphone t includes a 3.6-inch, 480x800 display that is 2.5x the resolution of the Pre. The 5-megapixel camera includes image stabilization, autofocus, and LED flash. The Pre 3 also comes with a forward-facing camera for video calling, and it runs on a 1.4GHz Qualcomm processor.

Following HP's huge slash in the prices, customers in the U.S. and Europe have been searching high and low to find one. Some have resorted to bidding.

According to the Washington Post, people are on eBay bidding on TouchPad tablets that are going for around $300, which is just $99 less than the device's last discounted retail price. The discounted retail price for the 16 GB version was $399, and the 32 GB was selling for $499.

The tablet first debuted on July 1, starting at $499.

HP has decided to stop manufacturing the TouchPad, but will release more of the device as a part of their clearance sale. The company said it decided to stop manufacturing the tablet computer because of disappointing sales since its July release.

On Thursday, HP said it would stop making all webOS-powered devices ? including the Pre 3 - so it could focus on developing the OS rather than manufacturing hardware.

We will focus on the future of webOS as a software platform but we will no longer be producing webOS devices, said HP's senior vice president of Global Developer Relations, Richard Kerris, in a blog post. While this was a difficult decision, it's one that will strengthen our ability to focus on further innovating with webOS as we forge our path forward.