HERE’S SOMETHING you don’t generally hear when it comes to Apple hardware. The iPad is deemed as being too inexpensive by Taiwanese hardware manufacturers. Considering that Apple has a reputation for selling reassuringly expensive products, it now seems like the company has come up with a product that is too cheap for the competition.
According to Digitimes, both Asus and MSI are re-evaluating their tablet plans, as the iPad is just too price competitive. With many expecting Apple’s tablet to be priced much closer to $1,000 than the starting price of $499, the competition has run into pricing problems. The plan was to undersell Apple by 20 to 30 percent, but with Apple having its most basic model on sale for half the price of what many expected the iPad to sell for, the Taiwanese manufactures are scrambling to come up with new plans.
Considering how little money here is in netbooks these days, many manufacturers pegged their hopes on tablet type devices. Just about everyone had some kind of a tablet device on show at CES, but no one was announcing any pricing. It seems like this was a smart move, as at least now they don’t have to look stupid because they priced their upcoming devices way above Apple’s shiny new toy.
We’d still expect a few of the upcoming tablets to cost more than the iPad, as we’ve already seen plenty of devices that offer superior functionality. More features and higher performance costs money and as such the final device will be more expensive. On the other hand, if done right, we can see a couple of companies coming out with devices that will actually be iPad beaters. Android is of course the big unknown factor here that many are now pinning their hopes on, as Windows has proven time and time again that it’s not the operating system for a handheld computer of any kind.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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