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Motorola's XOOM Tablet To Cost $799; Wi-Fi Requires 3G Activation?
WrongSizeGlass writes "The price of Motorola's XOOM Tablet has been leaked in a Best Buy ad. The $799 Android 3-enabled tablet will be available starting Feb 24th. Though the price may seem a bit high, the most surprising detail is that activating the Xoom's Wi-Fi will require signing up for at least one month of Verizon's 3G service. Let's hope the fine print in the Best Buy ad turns out to be a typo."
The iPad2 is going to murder the flagship Android tablets... shame, I really want an Android tablet, But give a wifi only version in the same price range as the wifi iPad! I only need to pay for one bloody data connection, and I already have one on my phone!
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Considering the number of typos in the ad itself (octivative or activative), I'll wait until an official announcement of the price (or until it starts selling).
Why can't we get some decent competition for the iPad? The iPad2 will probably be released around the same time, or shortly after, and be the same price as the current iPad, blowing this out of the water.
Psychologically, that price is way high. There's a reason Apple wanted to target a $499 price point with the iPad. I think once they start getting into the mid-range laptop price range, it becomes a different kind of purchasing decision. At least, that's the reaction I've had as well as a few others I know. We were pretty excited about the Xoom, but once it comes time to lay down $800+, it stops being an impulse buy.
I hope this does not start an upward trend in price for tablets. Large-ish android phones will easily cannibalize its big brothers if the price differential is that great.
on this and other devices in this range of price. When the prices come down to 300-400 for such a large panel and full computer functionality including netbook stuff like external monitor and keyboard hookup, then I'm going to buy one... Until then, its sidelines for me and I suspect many others.
Right. 799 is a low end of the estimates people had for the iPad last year. Now that flash memory and display technologies have had about 12 months to mature from the introduction of the ipad, prices for competitors should at least be lower than Apple's price point for the low end 3G ipad. I don't think it is completely fair to judge the XOOM against the wifi ipad since I think all of the XOOMs will have 3g, but 150 dollars more than Apple is nuts.
You know it's bad when even Moto can't get enough volume to beat the iPad on price.
Let's see:
Apple: I want to buy 45 million IPS screens. Oh, and can you throw in 45 million pieces of 32gb of flash, a bunch of components like batteries etc? And be sure to give us a good price, since we're basically going to be making you rich for the next 5 years if everything goes right.
Supplier CEO: sure, here's my private line. iI you need anything, even a Big Mac or a foot massage we'll send it right over.
Everyone else: I'm making a tablet, and am looking at around 50k pieces to start
Supplier sales rep: uh, I'll get back to you once we're done with this Apple order. Have you tried tier 3 manufacturer around the block? Tier 2 is busy, since we're subcontracting their excess capacity.
You forget about this: http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/2322215/Motorola-Sticks-To-Guns-On-Locking-Down-Android
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
That's right apple always overcharges for a premium and over price their gadgets anyways.
However Since the xoom is $150 more than the similar ipad maybe people should stop assuming that apple overcharges for hardware. To Date not one tablet competitor has been able to meet apple's price point by a significant margin. The galaxy Tab is close but then again it has a 3" smaller screen.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Who would buy this?
Several million people.
When $600 gets you a six-core desktop with 8 GB of RAM and a decent video card, why would you waste your time with a crippled tablet that costs more? The PC is a versatile machine that can do *anything*
... except be portable.
I'm against tablets costing over $400
Miniaturization costs money and tablets require some extra R&D because they need an OS/apps that aren't already on store shelves.
It's fun to rant and all, but products aren't priced just by how many FLOPs they perform.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Let's see, for that price I can get a 17" laptop with a triple core CPU, 4GB RAM, 640GB hard drive, lightscribe DL DVDRW. Oh, and I can watch a movie without having to hold it, read an ebook without having to hold it, and use full fledged applications on it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157424&cm_re=17%22_laptop-_-34-157-424-_-Product
Why folks would buy a tablet they have to hold with way less functionality, for more money, I just don't get.
I think if your operating philosophy requires that you conclude tens of millions of people making a specific purchase decision must be idiots you should re-evaluate that philosophy because it obviously provides little to no predictive power.
I had really hoped the price would be closer to $500, but if we're comparing apples to Apples, then the iPad isn't $500.
This is a 3G + Wifi 32GB model. So the comparable iPad is $730. The Xoom is $70 more, has 4 times the RAM, two HD cameras, a SD slot, and a dual-core processor.
And I keep hearing stories how the average iPad purchase was over $800 with accessories. So the price is high, but not ridiculously high.
That being said, Motorolla needs to offer a base model (Wifi only) for under $600 if they want to compete.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I'm not familiar with your math.
32GB 3G iPad is $730. The 32GB 3G Xoom is $800. I'm not seeing a $150 difference.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Let's see, for that price I can get a 17" laptop with a triple core CPU, 4GB RAM, 640GB hard drive, lightscribe DL DVDRW. Oh, and I can watch a movie without having to hold it, read an ebook without having to hold it, and use full fledged applications on it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157424&cm_re=17%22_laptop-_-34-157-424-_-Product
Why folks would buy a tablet they have to hold with way less functionality, for more money, I just don't get.
Remind us - how much does that laptop weigh again? And how thick is it? You pay a significant premium for portability - in terms of higher cost, lower performance, or both.
#DeleteChrome
It's starting to look like Apple has set the bar too high for it's competitors in the pad market. Everything is starting to look like cheap junk or else it has problems with costing about what the iPad does or even more. For once it seems that Apples price point may actually not be massively outrageous as usual. Also all the guys with droid phones at work are starting to notice that the guys who have iphones have systems that work smoother. A couple have even stated they plan to get an iphone as soon as they can now that it's available on verizon. The ipads I've seen are the same way. Everything just flows. There's more to making a system work than throwing hardware together and hacking some software together.
Because reading an e-book while sitting on a train, riding to work, is a neck-breaking BITCH with a laptop but not an unpleasant experience with a tablet.
And with the included stand, I can watch a movie without having to hold the iPad.
Walking down the hall to a colleague's office, or to see my wife in a different room and show them something on the screen is much easier with a tablet than a bulky laptop.
Because not everything is a nail and you have more than a hammer?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
62% of iPad customers apparently. At least, 62% of the next run will be 3G models. I haven't seen sales breakdowns anywhere.
http://www.cultofmac.com/analyst-62-of-first-run-ipad-2s-will-be-3g-and-16-verizon/80752
And according to this survey, the $830 iPad is the most popular model.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2274007/context-ipad-3g-sales-uk
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
On Wednesday we'll find out about HP's new tablets. One thing that will be very important will be the price. I'm hoping that it steers well clear of the $800 mark. As I was telling someone, there are two ways to approach this: One, a low cost device that will be an easy purchase. Two, a device with incredible specs that people are willing to pay a premium for. I honestly think that approach one, while possibly a disappointment to the tech geek crowd, will yield a lot more owners. In any case, I'll be there in SF to hear the announcement!
Author of Enyo: Up and Running from O'Reilly Media
No moving parts, they weigh 1.5-1.6 pounds, they don't get terribly hot.
I can work on an iPad and just toss it on the couch without worrying about hard disk platters, the screen hinges or something coming apart inside. Functionally it's like working with a book or a notebook not a computer.
HP from your link - 8.19 lbs
iPad 32GB 3G - 1.6 lbs
HP - 16.35" x 10.80" x 1.25" - 1.46"
iPad - 9.56" x 7.47" x 0.5"
See here for a complete explanation.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The ipad and similar tablets are big enough to comfortably read web pages, watch video, read ebooks etc on while being small light and robust and of a suitable form factor to hold in one hand and operate in the other. Laptops are fine if you can sit down at a table to use them but that isn't always practical.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
A lot of people criticized Apple for going with a 4:3 display but in reality it's the better choice for tablets.
More likely, they factored in
- huge quantity discounts on all parts, especially screens
- good revenues from ancillary sales from their various "stores". Android thingies cannot really do that (fewer stores, sparser stores, revenues are mainly Google's and others', not manufacturers')
- need for a low-end, cheap version to advertize, betting their customers would go for the high-end versions, whose margins are way higher ($15 extra materials costs, $300 extra price)
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I suppose this is the (evil) genius of lock-in: subsidise the hardware with app-store profits. Defer consumers seeing higher prices until they buy apps, or rely on the cut-throat app-store market forcing developers to absorb the discount.
Seriously, the iPad has been great, but I'd love more control, real multitasking, and to flush iTunes back down to the depths of Hell it came from.
You've had a year to catch up and this is the best you can do? And don't say Galaxy Tab -maybe the Tab 2. I really hope this just turns out to be a normal Best Buy/Verizon 'Screw The Early Adopters' thing and it'll get saner as iPad 2 launch approaches.
Especially the WiFi activation: if true, good god, what foreskin up around his neck executive came up with that one?
Apple is doing what it has always been doing.
The reason that Apple is fairing better in the phone, mp3 player and tablet market, is because those are closer to the appliance philosophy that Apple has always had then what we call the traditional PC market.
I might sound as a bit of a fanboy and maybe I have become one, but I only own a Mac since three years, although I occasionally used them for nearly 15. Apple never was a technical innovator, but in design and concept they have been way ahead of everyone else, at least in those years that Steve Jobs has been in control. This made them great in creating something new from existing technology. From the first Apple Computer, the Mac, MacOs, the Powerbook, iMac, iPod, OSX, iTunes, iPhone AppStore and iPad. Sure there have also been failures, Newton, Xserver, AppleTV?
As an engineer I know that the hardest thing is to get your user interface right. Apple is a master at that. Steve Jobs isn't a technical guy, he's a designer and a marketeer. But most of all a user.
Except for those years where an aggressive MS combined with the board kicking Steve out because he was to young to be considered CEO of the company he founded, Apple has only gone up and up under his leadership. I'm amazed to see giants as Nokia, Sony, MS, Google struggle to come up with an answer to products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad. I think it's because they have become so used to selling to OEMs and Corporations, that they struggle change focus. I think that Google is the only one that can also play that game.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
The authors question of if Apple should be blamed for the overpriced Xoom is ridiculous. 1 year ago nobody thought you could create a viable tablet for $500 and Apple created the whole market overnight. Look up articles from January 2010 most of the tech analysts were projecting an Apple tablet for over $1000 some as high as $2000. Apple created the market, there is no excuse for Motorola to overprice. They have big buying power and a third party gave them an OS for orders of magnitude less money than Apple paid to develop iOS.
If this is the best Android can muster iPad1 will eat its lunch, iPad2 will dominate it if they keep price down. Right now the Playbook looks like stiffer compitition because of the business user sales channel Blackberry has available.
Xoom +$800 price tag = doa
"That's right apple always overcharges for a premium and over price their gadgets anyways."
But do they include a bait-and-switch?
All I see here is concern for the register price for these tablets, not the fact that one month of Verizon service is also a 2 year service contract. Does anyone really expect VERIZON, of all companies, to go through the rigmarole of signing people up just for one months fees? Last I did business with them, they signed me up for another year of contact when I simply asked for a paper bill (for which they also charged me $1.99).
When you really look at what Apple offers, you will find that they are not charging premium prices. When you select a system with the same specs at Dell, you'll get the same price. It's just that Apple doesn't sell the crappy versions that everyone else offers.
Nobody sets the bar as high as Apple sets it for itself. They choose not to sell to the markets that can only afford the el cheapo knockoff.
Steve Jobs is at the core of this philosophy, he's been doing business like that since the company started in the 70s. You could say he has expensive tastes, if he was building cars it would be Rolls-Roys or maybe Mercedes, BMW or Audi. He isn't interested in building the Skoda or Daihatsu of the computer world.
The way they were beaten in the 80s was by flooding the markets with cheap, but inferior clones. Google has read a couple of chapters from MS' playbook and is now trying it with Android. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the long term in the laptop, mp3 player and smartphone/tablet market. Currently Apple leads and eveyone is playing catch up. But especially MS known to come to the game late and still win in the end. Google is another big unknown and existing players like Nokia and Sony aren't done yet either.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Apple makes a direct profit on every piece of hardware they sell, including iPads. App Store (and music store) profits are minuscule compared to their hardware profits. There is no lock-in dynamic like you are imagining.
Their prices were as low as they were because their prices are higher than the cost to make them. It's very simple economics.
[they have a] cult-like following that tend to buy whatever they come out with regardless of cost or function
You're a fucking idiot if you think this is true. People don't buy iPods, iPhones or iPads in spite of high prices and limited functionality. They buy them because they are fantastic products at a price they are willing to pay for. Just because these products offend your geek-centric view of the world does not make those that think otherwise cult-like. If anything, you're the minority opinion, if you're going to start bandying about a term like "cult".
You forget about this: http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/2322215/Motorola-Sticks-To-Guns-On-Locking-Down-Android
Think again - Motorola said that post was basically BS, and they are working to possibly make installing custom roms easier.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/21/motorola-ready-to-make-sweet-love-to-rom-devs-and-rooters/
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Apple is not about the hardware.
Apple is about hardware more than any other company on the planet. The thing you are missing is they are about the hardware that normal humans like, not the silly niche market populated by geeks.
With this pricing and wifi policy, it would probably go over more like a lead balloon.
And if it has Moto's traditional ROM lockdown I'll definitely keep my wallet in my pocket this time round.
Looking forward to the coming influx of better/cheaper/freeer Android pads on the way. A 10 inch Archos with a decent screen would do the trick for me.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Ever since the Samsung Galaxy Tab looked like priced way to high I have had a theory: They just fear to have their tablets to be looked upon as "cheap iPad clones". They think people have learned to think "expensive = good", so they price the things up through the roof.
Wait a minute, your theory is that Motorola (and Samsung) deliberately overpriced their tablets in order to get people to think they are better? And that's supposed to be their strategy for a mass market product?
Doesn't it simply make more sense that they can't build their tablets at a price competitive with Apple?
Special Education stuff
That happens to be in the app store?
Required reading for internet skeptics
It literally has cell phone hardware inside of it. This is a fact, not opinion. It says nothing about the relative merit of the iPad. I own one, it's a fine device. Seriously, chill the fuck out.
Sorry, my bullshit detector can't handle much more of this.
Name this mysterious "Special Education" application that requires the CD to run on a windows machine, but that apparently is also available via the app store for the iPad.
Required reading for internet skeptics
The iPad has a flush back surface, it slips in the palm... and though light, it is a bit heavy to hold by the edge for typing. Also, it is also slightly too wide for comfortable double-thumb typing when griped from both sides. These points were immediately apparent the first time I picked one up in a store. In general observation, I have yet to see someone one-hand these things "in the wild", it is always propped up on resting on something. At which point, it could be a laptop/netbook, really. I will certainly give you robust, it stands up to my toddler - but I suspect the size factor was driven by the size of readily available screens, it certainly was not ergonomics for the vast majority of the population.
!Equality through palindromes semordnilap hguorht ytilauqE!
Part of me wonders if this isn't some kind of ruse, that they're saying $799 because they'll actually flog it at $499 on some phone plan and people will be dumb enough to think they're getting a bargain. Regardless, it's way, way, too much money.
Web apps running under iOS will always be harder to use than native apps because Apple bans native APIs like Flash and non-Apple JavaScript. This means that web apps can't make use of device I/O such as multi-touch, sound, GPS, accelerometer, etc.
Accelerometer in MobileSafari - http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/safari-ios-accelerometer-websockets-html5
GPS in MobileSafari - http://blog.bemoko.com/2009/06/17/iphone-30-geolocation-javascript-api/
Multi Touch Gestures in MobileSafari - http://www.sitepen.com/blog/2008/07/10/touching-and-gesturing-on-the-iphone/
Sound in MobileSafari - http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
Please do some research before saying what can and can't be done.
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Don't be absurd. This price is not high. It's LOW. Too low, in fact. Google fanboys will flock to this product. They will beg to spend their money on it. They will bow down and lick the boots of Google, do a goat.se, and beg to have Google suck their cash and souls straight out their their gaping anuses. They want their product to win, win, win. Who cares if it is an inferior, over-priced, me-too kludge. But, hey, it'll run Flash, right?