Amidst $99 HP TouchPad Sale Madness, Lenovo Releases ThinkPad Tablet

While the recently discontinued HP TouchPad continues to sell at deeply reduced prices, Lenovo has just released its ThinkPad tablet device.

According to ZDNet, the Lenovo ThinkPad, with a 10.1 inch screen, is now on presale only through Lenovo.com, and can ship as soon as Aug. 29. At $499 for a 16GB model, the Android-powered ThinkPad could slip through the cracks while HP sells its discontinued 16GB and 32GB TouchPads for a fraction of the cost, at $99 and $149, respectively.

According to SlashGear, The stylus and the styling [of ThinkPad] add up to a distinctive slate that doesn't merely attempt to ape Apple's iPad, the current leader of the tablet market.

Marketed for increased productivity, the Lenovo ThinkPad runs on Android's Honeycomb OS and features front and rear cameras, HDMI-out, a 3-in-1 SD card reader, and Gorilla Glass.

A few models of the ThinkPad are available: The Wi-Fi only, 16GB model is priced at $499, the 3G and Wi-Fi 32GB model is $569 and the 3G/Wi-Fi 64GB model is $669. Additional accessories, like the keyboard and pen, are also available for purchase.

HP TouchPad Sale Madness

The TouchPad sale began as large retailers requested to clear out stockpiled inventory. According to PCWorld, Best Buy sold less than 10 percent of its inventory, sending back nearly 250,000 TouchPads to HP.

The TouchPad sale also comes amidst a change in plans for HP, which said on Thursday that it would discontinue all webOS-powered devices in an effort to optimize the value of webOS software going forward, according to an HP representative.

In response, HP ordered retailers in a memo to offer the TouchPad at a heavily discounted price of $99 for 16GB and $149 for 32GB, down from $500 and $600 when the models were released in July.

While most vendors, including the manufacturer itself, declared to be out of stock of HP TouchPads during the fire sale, HP's social media manager Bryna Corcoran tweeted that more TouchPads should be available this week.

Home and Home Office Store: Confirmed they are definitely getting more. But not in stock just yet. Any day now. Stay tuned for more info, she tweeted.

According to Corcoran, the best way to try and get a TouchPad is to sign up for an alert to be notified when more are in stock.