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NEWSFLASH: You CAN Pre-Order HP TouchPad at Best Buy Retail Stores! (Plus Incentives?)

By: , 6/25/2011 5:56 pm | 30 comments

We have gotten so many reports from our readers of Best Buy store employees turning them them away when trying to pre-order HP TouchPads that we decided to look into it ourselves. A secret agent, code-named “George,” was able to squeeze info out of hapless employees at his local Best Buy store. What did he find after half an hour of interrogations?

SURPRISE! You CAN pre-order your HP TouchPad directly from Best Buy stores. Here’s how it works…

BB Reservation Ticket

Click to enlarge

  • Go to your local Best Buy store
  • Tell an employee you want to pre-order the HP TouchPad
  • Wait for a blank look
  • Inform them you know for a FACT that there are reservation forms in the store
  • Fill out the reservation form (pictured on right)
  • Pay a $50 fee to reserve your TouchPad. This money will go towards the purchase of the TouchPad July 1st, or towards a Best Buy gift card if you have a change of heart.
  • You can finance your TouchPad one of two ways… according to the snippet of the internal Best Buy document (see gallery below), everybody wins… ;)
  • Bonus: If you purchase any broadband device (like a Mifi) with 2 year activation, that knocks off $100 of any tablet price… this excludes the iPad of course, but not the TouchPad! We find this interesting since Verizon is still allowing unlimited data plans for Verizon accounts activated before 7/7/11. We’re also pretty certain the Pre3 will land on Verizon for sure. … Just an FYI!

    There you have it folks! Evidence that you can in fact reserve your HP TouchPad at Best Buy stores. Whew! 

    [Thanks "George" for the awesome sleuthing!]

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About Dan Ramirez

Dan is a senior editor at webOSroundup. He is a physician in South Texas with an unbridled passion for webOS. He is very active on Twitter (@vara411) and enjoys engaging the webOS community.
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  • Kurt V

    Here is my advice for pre-ordering if you want to save a few bucks. Pre-order the Touchpad from Amazon with one-day shipping. There is no sales tax to pay when purchasing from Amazon. Then contact a sales rep (chat/call), and say that you want the Touchpad delivered Saturday. They will say it is not available for Saturday delivery, and that you will receive it July 5th. Then they should offer to refund all shipping costs to compensate for the fact that you cannot receive it Saturday. This worked for me. If you have accessories you want to purchase, they are quite a bit cheaper at Amazon (touchstone charger, case, keyboard). So place a separate order for accessories and request the free shipping option. You could probably live without the accessories for a few days anyway.  Hope that helps!  I continue to be impressed with Amazon.  They continue to offer me the best service and price of any retailer.

    • Shibby

      Shhh, don’t need to tell everyone lol

  • Doramjan

    Good tips for navigating Best Buy, George.  Thanks for doing all that legwork!

    • George Salcedo

      NP… I will be PreOrdering my TP there & Buying a Verizon LTE MIFI. BestBuy has the best deal I have found so far. The representatives were very helpful.They took the time to answer all of my questions & research the PreOrder form.

    • George Salcedo

      NP… I will be PreOrdering my TP there & Buying a Verizon LTE MIFI. BestBuy has the best deal I have found so far. The representatives were very helpful.They took the time to answer all of my questions & research the PreOrder form.

    • George Salcedo

      NP… I will be PreOrdering my TP there & Buying a Verizon LTE MIFI. BestBuy has the best deal I have found so far. The representatives were very helpful.They took the time to answer all of my questions & research the PreOrder form.

    • George Salcedo

      NP… I will be PreOrdering my TP there & Buying a Verizon LTE MIFI. BestBuy has the best deal I have found so far. The representatives were very helpful.They took the time to answer all of my questions & research the PreOrder form.

    • George Salcedo

      NP… I will be PreOrdering my TP there & Buying a Verizon LTE MIFI. BestBuy has the best deal I have found so far. The representatives were very helpful.They took the time to answer all of my questions & research the PreOrder form.

  • Noelwk

    Verizon doesn’t offer unlimited on broadband devices like the mifi.

  • Noelwk

    Verizon doesn’t offer unlimited on broadband devices like the mifi.

  • Anonymous

    The HP stand at the Yonkers, NY Best Buy had none of this info today.

    On one side were to “Coming Soon” standup cards for the Touchpad and on the other side were two cell-phone stands, one of which was empty, and one of which held a Veer with a dead battery.  

    Of course, this same Best Buy hadn’t installed Flash on any of the 7 or so Flash-capable Android tablets they had on demo display, so it could be that this store just a really poorly-run exception.

  • Cheech

    I did exactly as this article instructed…it almost went down as it was written. However, I was able to show the Best Buy rep the pic of the pre-order ticket posted with this article. After a few moments of a ‘few’ BB reps ‘looking into it’ I was able to pre-order. I still have my TouchPad and accessories on order @ Amazon as well. I am going to cancel the TouchPad @ Amazon (cuz I couldn’t get it until the 5th) but keep the accessories order because as Kurt V states the accessories are cheaper @ Amazon. I just hope BB does in fact get the TP on the 1st & there are no delays. BTW BB rep said I was the first one to pre-order the TP. (as far as sales tax I live in NH….no sales tax) Live Free or Die & Gimmee my TouchPad!

    • Cheech

      Just to clarify: I was the first to pre-order the TouchPad at that particular Best Buy store. But you probably knew what I meant. ;-)

  • Don Bakke

    Are they only pre-ordering the 16GB device? The reservation ticket only mentions the 16GB device and the barcode on the form seems to suggest this is product specific? Am I wrong?

    • Don Bakke

      BTW, I actually visited my local Best Buy earlier today in hopes of at least seeing a display (sans devices of course.) Nada. I talked the guy in the department and got the “blank stare” as mention in this article. Very frustrating.

    • Cheech

      Both options 16 & 32 were available for pre-order. :-) Different reserve tickets were printed based on your preference.

      • Don Bakke

        Thanks! I finally saw that on the Launch Guide (didn’t realize they needed to click on links to download the reserve ticket.) Now it would be very handy if I could actually walk in with the URL (assuming they have to sign on to their Best Buy intranet first) so they won’t have any excuse like “we can’t find that page”.

  • Malette

    Well on the bright side every one struggling to get the TP pre-ordered and succeeds is in it’s own way training the employees. Which of course isn’t our job, but at least I hope the next person won’t have such a hard time. Plus it may sparks the reps interest as to why it is being asked for and make them learn more about it so they can show it off.

  • http://www.facebook.com/isaactorres Isaac Torres

    i was able to preorder my touchpad at Best Buy on the 19th with no issues. I am in Orlando…weird people were having probs. 

    • Louisoneal

      Same, I posted my experience earlier at an Orlando Best Buy.  I had no problem with preordering the Touchpad outside of the lady who took my pre-order not knowing the release date.  I told her :-)

      • Don Bakke

        I wonder if this is normal for Best Buy employees. I mean, I’m sure they get a ton of new products coming in for any given department. Heck, the tablet market itself is getting flooded. Other than obvious players like the iPad(2) I’m sure the general floor staff do not know things like release dates and pre-orders without somebody educating them (like customers!)

  • Steven

    That’s so funny n true.. Wait for a blank look.. Happens way too often..

    • MichaelMarr

      While trying to buy a handheld scanner, not only did I get a blank look, but after forcing him to find one in the store’s inventory, he said they probably didn’t have it back there and then he walked off.

    • MichaelMarr

      While trying to buy a handheld scanner, not only did I get a blank look, but after forcing him to find one in the store’s inventory, he said they probably didn’t have it back there and then he walked off.

  • Craig

    My local BB in downtown toronto not only knew about the pre order… they had a HP rep on hand with a demo unit.

    • Anonymous

      Ahhh, I miss Toronto, and you’ve given me yet another reason why. I’m stuck out here in Albuquerque, New Mexico now, where they’re still trying to learn what the iPad is!

    • Anonymous

      Ahhh, I miss Toronto, and you’ve given me yet another reason why. I’m stuck out here in Albuquerque, New Mexico now, where they’re still trying to learn what the iPad is!

    • Anonymous

      Ahhh, I miss Toronto, and you’ve given me yet another reason why. I’m stuck out here in Albuquerque, New Mexico now, where they’re still trying to learn what the iPad is!

  • Craig

    My local BB in downtown toronto not only knew about the pre order… they had a HP rep on hand with a demo unit.

  • Don Bakke

    FWIW, I called my local Frys (Anaheim, California) and they said they’ve received multiple calls about the TouchPad. However, the guy in the PC department couldn’t confirm when they would get it. In fact, he was certain that they didn’t even have any units shipped to the store yet.

    I called the Best Buy that previously gave me the blank looks and asked the customer service rep if I could pre-order the TouchPad. She put me on hold for a minute and then came back and said all I need to do is visit the Customer Service counter and tell them I want to pre-order the TouchPad.