In a desperate bid to flog its poorly selling TouchPad,  the maker of expensive printer ink is offering $50 off. Coming less than a month after the TouchPad went on sale, the "instant rebates" are a sign that the tablets are not selling well.

Amazon.com and Office Depot have reduced prices on the 16GB and 32GB TouchPad models. The TouchPad tablet went on sale in the US on July 1, it is is due to launch in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong next month.

HP wants to release a 4G TouchPad tablet with a dual-core 1.5GHz processor for AT&T's wireless network. The original TouchPad had only Wi-Fi and a dual-core 1.2GHz Tegra processor.

Bob O'Donnell, program vice president at research firm IDC told PC World that the device feels heavy, and application support is also poor. HP was also dumb enough to think it could flog a tablet with the same ridiculous mark up as Apple when it is like an iPad 1 in the era of an iPad 2.

HP has said it is working to update the webOS operating system to fix performance issues, but has not provided a release date for the update. Android Tablets are expected to fall below $300 this Christmas.