The Live Indian Entertainment Blog

RIM has taken an axe to the prices it charges for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in the UK - again.

You can now pick up the 16GB version of just £169. It was priced at £399 at launch, and yesterday would have set you back £249. That's roughly a third off in 24 hours.

The 32GB now costs £199, the 64GB tablet £249, down from £479 and £559, respectively.

A variety of retailers, including Carphone Warehouse and Dixons, have just applied the new prices.

RIM knocked £150 off the original prices in October 2011 in a bid to boost demand for the 7in tablets. Punters have not taken to the machine.

It didn't do much good, and just as October's cut followed a big price reduction in the States, so this latest round of reductions comes after RIM discounted again over there.

Amazon's Kindles have been booted out of the top spot among electronics best sellers by a device which has been, basically, sent to the scrap heap: the HP TouchPad. The 16GB and 32GB versions (in that order) are in the top spots among Amazon's electronics best sellers.

Strangely, however, Amazon.com itself is sold out of the device. Some of its third-party Marketplace vendors continue to sell it, but at nowhere near the price of that HP is using to clear out its now dead (in terms of manufacturing new devices) tablet: $99 for 16GB, and $149 for 32GB.

HP said last Thursday it was halting manufacture of its tablet, but that it would continue work on webOS, in hopes of licensing or selling the IP.

Amazing as it is that HP's tablet would wind up atop Amazon.com's list, HP also has some other amazing news: the company announced that a second wave of webOS TouchPads would be coming later this week. It did not specify further than that.

It did, however, create a page that users could use to sign up for an email alert when (if?) the items are back in stock. As we said, however, HP has said there would be a second wave of TouchPad tablets coming later this week.

How many (of each type) and when, remains to be seen, but SlickDeals is saying that Wednesday will be the day. According to the forums, retailers and HP.com have confirmed that to be the date.

Finally, it looks like the U.K. will join in on the fire sale fun. U.K. retailer Dixons has confirmed pricing of £89 for 16GB ($146.50) and £115 for 32GB ($189).