Will tablet price drop off the cliff in 2012?
HDTVs finally became reasonable this past year. Is this the year for significant rice drops on tablets? I am hoping iPad3 this spring will start the landslide...
by
dgrimmer
asked 5 months ago
Usually, with Apple, their products stay the same price or increase slightly year after year.
I would not expect a price drop on the iPad 3 when it comes out. I do expect, however, every other tablet manufacturer to start lowering their prices like we have seen with most Android tablets this Christmas season.
@sizzlestick: I'm not so sure "lowering prices" is the best description for Android tablets. I get the impression it will be more like "clearing out remaining inventory." It seems that between the iPad and Kindle Fire, all other tablets have been left in the dust (sales wise) or soon will be. I think the price reductions we saw this holiday shopping season have been out of desperation more than anything else.
It's a shame too, since there are a lot of good Android tablets that are very functional and a good value.
I agree with the previous comments. I think there will be a shakeout of the lesser known tablets next year because I think the market is saturated. When the Windows8 tablets are released there will be additional stress on the tablet market.
Just as Jobs argued, the Android platform is awesome, but being that SO many manufacturers are making hardware - the platform won't last compared to the iPad.
The iPad 3, if Apple does manage to scale up Retina display technology properly, will certainly not be cheaper than the iPad or iPad 2. From what I've been reading they may be having some issues with batch yields on the new panels. The iPad 3 won't end up costing more, but for the increased production costs, it certainly won't cost less than the current gen. I do expect to see Android tablet prices drop, mainly because the market just doesn't support the pricing of the Android "iPad Killers."
On the none Apple front.
Would you buy a recertified tablet; if so that you can see a 40 to 50% price drop now.
Newegg is listing a new Acer Iconia 10 inch wide with 32GB for $500 and re certified units for $339. I got a re certified 16Gb unit for my parents for $250 by watching the deals.woot listings. I also got two re certified Xoom 10.1 32Gb tablets for $350. @Walmarts.com is still selling the Xoom for $348.00.
TomsHardware posted a news article from a major Chinese manufacture months ago that stated that tablets prices would drop drastically in the early quarters of the year. The major vendors are coming out with new products like the Asus transformer prime quad core tablet and are clearing inventory now.
You may see some drop in price on Android tablets, but not all. Asus won't drop price on Prime, and still hasn't dropped price of 16gb Transformer. You will have more come out with cheaper prices and less functionality, though. Like the Kindle Fire. The Lenovo A1 & K1 series has most functions and are priced well, but hard to keep in stock. The Acer I conia has already dropped.
Blackberry Playbook was/is a joke, imo.
Windows tablets won't drop price. They are overly expensive, but more geared toward business. This is a very small market.
Apple, nope, not likely. The Ipod classic is still over $200.
@huachucac: The Novo 7- $99, video on YouTube. Microsoft is a different market, Apple, well, is Apple. Not for everybody.
A semi-quick tablet for $99 puts lots of buyers in the market, kills of the no-name tablets.
That's a game-changer.
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