The HP TouchPad may be the best tablet you can get for $99, but the webOS platform is all but dead. Why do so many people want one?

Thanks to , the HP TouchPad has gone from a struggling iPad competitor to the must-have gadget of the moment. People are snapping them up so fast that it's breaking HP's servers, and many major retailers have reportedly already, though more TouchPads are on the way (from warehouses, not production lines, which have been halted). People clearly want them badly, but… why exactly? That's the question of our poll.

On the surface, the TouchPad's newfound popularity is obvious: $99 is the "sweet spot" in electronics pricing, the point where it becomes almost an impulse buy. We witnessed this with last year: When Apple turned the device into a bare-bones media streamer and slashed the price to $99, people finally started buying the device en masse. Before that, adoption was so slow that Steve Jobs called the product a mere

But Apple TV is a fully supported product with a future. HP has outright killed the TouchPad and its webOS operating system (the technology may yet find a new home, but even if it does, it's been crippled, perhaps fatally). There's no future for this product, and there will be no more TouchPads. HP has promised to continue to support it, but they to work on apps for a dead—or undead—platform. (Browse the slideshow above for the best of them.)

At the same time, the whole idea of owning a tablet is still in question. The iPad's popularity is indisputable, but no other tablet has come close to matching it in sales or market share. Darren Murph from Engadget recently condemned tablets as productivity devices, saying they're not really the "third device" that marketers and analysts claim they are. In short, no one really needs a tablet.

The frenzy over the TouchPad fire sale certainly shows people want them, though. Which brings us to the question: Why are people buying them? If you've recently bought a TouchPad, or if you plan to buy one, we want to know your thinking behind the decision. Please answer our poll, and leave your thoughts in the comments.