HP Pre 3 is out of stock and no more Touchpads yet

CUT PRICE HP Touchpads and Palm Pre 3 smartphones will not go on sale in Europe today, despite earlier hints to the contrary.

The INQUIRER visited the Palm Eurostore web site this morning after HP promised a 10am update about both devices yesterday.

However, we discovered that the "update" on the HP Pre 3 has been delayed until 31 August, while cut price HP Touchpads will not go back on sale, at least in the Palm Eurostore, for the foreseeable future.

The Palm Eurostore's update on the Pre 3 said, "No new orders can be taken for this Product at this time. No change expected to that position before 31st August."

"Customers who have an existing order with us will be contacted directly by our customer service team on Friday 26th in relation to the status of their order. We will contact you - please can we ask you to be patient and await contact by us."

It added, "We, at Palm Eurostore, are continuing to pursue all options to try to obtain Pre 3 product. We do not, however, expect to have any further information in this respect before Wed 31st Aug. Any new information will appear here first."

Both the Touchpad and the Palm Pre were also listed as sold out on HP.co.uk.

The HP Touchpad update on the Palm Eurostore indicated that it had thought there were more Touchpads coming, and was then told by HP that actually, they weren't. The update said, "This product is no longer available for sale. We do not expect this position to change. Customers who had already placed an order with Palm Eurostore have been sent an email communication in relation to their order.

"We know a lot of you may also have placed orders in the expectation that a price reduction would have been announced in Europe. In good faith, and after communication with HP, we at the Palm Eurostore allowed pre-orders to be taken for these products at the standard price. We fully intended and expected to be able to fulfill these orders and if a price reduction were to be announced then we would have applied that new price to the orders.

"A decision, wholly outside of our control, has been made which meant that this expectation will not now be met. This decision means that we can no longer obtain any inventory of these products. Therefore, regretfully, we have no alternative but to cancel your order for these products and to process a full and complete refund of your money."

This comes despite HP having said that more Touchpads would go on sale. Perhaps they will, but either in the US only or in some kind of flash sale.

Yesterday, The INQUIRER reported that HP denied Pre 3 stock to online stores, saying it will sell the device direct. Whether or not this will happen on 31 August we can't say. We'll just keep watching the HP website. µ