09-02-2011, 10:14 PM
DharmaDog wrote:
In this case, I don't think 21% is going to woo many customers. People want the iPad. They don't really want the PlayBook. Spending $550 for something you don't really want isn't enticing. But $99 for a TouchPad may have stolen some iPad sales.
How did Apple survive all those years selling a product "no one wanted" for more than the competition? Clearly, the market has room for diversity, even when hardly anyone was buying the Mac, there was still a niche. The mass market should not be the determining factor for everything, after all, these are the same yahoos buying Windows computers all these years.
I'm not the current target demographic as I wouldn't buy a tablet for more than $350, so even with this price drop, I'm not in the market for a PlayBook, or an iPad for that matter (refurbished first gen iPad for $300 is intriguing, so is the $350 Eee Pad Transformer). If I didn't already own an iPod touch, smartphone, and computer, the tablet would be more appealing. For me, it is a tertiary device (at best, I use my smartphone and iPod touch largely interchangeably, otherwise, the tablet would move down to fourth device). The price for most tablets are frankly a little expensive. $500 buys a decent computer or a heck of a smartphone. Who can afford to own all three (currently, the iPad is still an iTunes tethered device, iOS 5 should make this more appealing as you could actually eliminate the PC).
Power efficient portable devices are clearly the future, I love where the market is headed, assuming there remains a market. I have no interest in seeing one company dominate the landscape. It confuses me why more people don't buy Android tablets, after all the Android platform is the most popular phone smartphone platform (marketshare). The recent builds of Honeycomb on tablets like the Eee PC Transformer make for reasonably pleasant experiences.