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."

Comments

At this rate

[Anubis350]

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!

Re:At this rate

[Gravatron]

I think the eeepad transformer, also a honeycomb tablet, was shooting for a $400 price range. Which is about all I'm willing to spend on one.

Re:At this rate

[romanval]

I think this is a function of the fact that there are more peripherals for Apple now, so there's more things to break. When the "It just works" campaign started, there was hardly anything available that wasn't Apple produced, so yeah, things "Just worked" in most instances, but you had an extremely limited choice of what you could use. Now that Apple products have a larger ecosystem, they are running into the same problems as PCs... and thus the migration away from the Apple price premiums for basically no benefit.

On the flip side, the non-tech people are liking the Apple garden as much or more than before, because iOS is very gentle and easy for the non-tech savvy; they have no need for flexibility and the large icons and limited customizability of the whole thing is perfect for them.

So no, I doubt the iPad 2 is going to murder the Android tablets in terms of functionality, usability, price or any other technical metric. I don't see iOS having any significant changes between now and the advent of the iPad 2. The latest iterations of Android absolutely destroy iOS in terms of usability, speed, stability, flexibility and visual interface.

You forget how apple products are designed: It's the lack of features that's a feature, especially for the common (non-techie) crowd that wants a online device that's as simple to use as an appliance (like a toaster or a TV).

The whole "walled garden" aspect is irrelevant as long as the device does what most people want.

As for iOS fragmentation; there's only 3 iOS devices being shipped (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) with only a few variations between them.... A hell of a lot less fragmented then Android will ever be.

Re:At this rate

[Renderer of Evil]

This is MP3 wars all over again. Steady platform growth and incremental feature updates is what benefits Apple and leaves a trail of iKillers in its path.

While Android Tablet companies are trying to blow their wad on a single device that's spec'd out with last week's technology, Apple is more interested in investing into long-term platform development, rather than doing unnecessary weekly hardware refreshes. "Tegra 2. Flavor of the week!" Who cares? Not the majority of people.

The important takeaway from this is that it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is where Motorola, Toshiba, Samsung, et al are failing. They don't give a shit about "openness" or "Android." They want to ship a number of devices this quarter, forget about it and then ship some more next quarter. Especially when they're not making any money from updates or app sales. Any bugfixes, updates, recalls, or any type of customer interaction is cutting into their already razor-thin margins.

Apple has healthy margins so it's better for them to keep providing updates to old hardware. It's all about the platform.

Typos

[mariasama16]

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).

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[caywen]

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.

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[Protonk]

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.

Even Moto can't get costs down

[mveloso]

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.

Re:Even Moto can't get costs down

[UnknowingFool]

Or it could have gone this way:
(1 year ago)
Apple: We like the 10" screen you make; we'd like to buy out all of them for the next year.
Supplier CEO: Ka-Ching!

(6 months ago)
Everyone else: Hey we'd like to make a small order for 10" screens. We've looked at the market and yours is the only one that's ready for production and has our price point.
Supplier CEO: We're all sold out. Sorry.
Everyone else: $&^%!

Re:Even Moto can't get costs down

[sootman]

Actually, it was five years ago, and it did go this way:

On the operational side of the house, as you probably remember, we've historically entered into certain agreements with different people to secure supply and other benefits. The largest one in the recent past has been, we signed a deal with several flash [memory] suppliers back in the end of 2005 that totaled over a billion dollars, because we anticipated that flash would become increasingly important across our entire product line and increasingly important to the industry. And so we wanted to secure supply for our company.

—Tim Cook, Apple COO

That's just one example. I'm pretty sure they did the same for screens and lots of other important bits. Steve Jobs gets all the press but Mr. Cook is definitely pulling his weight.

Re:it's android...

[pablomme]

You forget about this: http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/2322215/Motorola-Sticks-To-Guns-On-Locking-Down-Android

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[peragrin]

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.

Re:Who would buy this?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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.

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[Protonk]

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.

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[Enderandrew]

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.

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[93 Escort Wagon]

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.

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[amiga3D]

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.

Re:Damn...

[UnknowingFool]

Maybe because manufacturing a touch screen device with at least a 10" screen, with some of the capabilities of a computer, and with the ability to communicate via Wifi or cellular 3G is a bit harder and more costly than most people realize. If I were to guess the hardest component to procure probably was the 10" screen. If I know Apple, they locked up the supply a long time ago. For the first iPod, Apple bought out all the tiny HDs that Toshiba made. Every other company had to use either laptop HDs or wait at least a year before Toshiba could produce enough for everyone or for Toshiba's competitors could make a similar product.

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[Enderandrew]

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

webOS Tablets on Wednesday

[El Royo]

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!

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[rsilvergun]

See here for a complete explanation.

Re:The price might seem a bit high

[obarthelemy]

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)

Blame Apple for the price.

[jbplou]

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

Re:Simple pass...

[JesseDegenerate]

technically even an ipad can do what you just said. (connect to a external display (via dock to component, composite, vga or HDMI adapter) with an external bluetooth keyboard.) just so ya know.

Re:If you can't be better, at least be more expens

[node 3]

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?