3-Way Price War On Black Friday: iPad, Nook, and Kindle

destinyland writes "Black Friday has touched off a three-way price war between Apple, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Kobo readers dropped their price to just $99 to compete with the Nook, only to discover that Barnes and Noble was lowering the price on their touchscreen Nooks to $79, to compete with the new $79 Kindle from Amazon. And meanwhile, Apple has announced aggressive pricing on all Apple products for Black Friday, reportedly including $100 off on MacBook and iMac products, and a $61 discount on the iPad 2."

Comments

Price War?

[BLT2112]

So this still leaves the iPad2 a few hundred dollars more expensive, right?

Re:Price War?

[nomadic]

You're not just buying a tablet, my friend, you're buying a lifestyle. The ipad is a bargain if you think about it like that; buy it and you're the kind of person who knows obscure indie bands, is comfortable hanging out in coffee shops just being chill, where strangers will invite you to gallery openings and private parties attended by other good-looking, creative individuals who also have the good taste to buy apple products. You will probably get a job offer by an independent film company, high-end advertising agency, or chic start-up right after buying it, and then you will be able to afford that high-end condo in San Francisco. Just make sure after you get it to come back to slashdot and respond to every anti-Apple post with anguished hostility.

Re:Price War?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a new price war between Apple and the others (who are selling products that are much more limited than an iPad).

In previous years, Apple has been known to discount iMacs and MacBook Pros by $101 on Black Friday; and also to discount iPod Touches (I think this discount was roughly 10%). A $61 discount on an iPad 2 would be roughly in line with this.

Re:Price War?

[Fuzzums]

At least there is SOMETHING cheap when it comes to apple products.
That is the jokes about their products.

Wait. My apologies. That was cheap :)

Re:Price War?

[alen]

so are other android tablets

the kindle fire will destroy the tablet businesses of most android tablet makers

Re:Price War?

[Guspaz]

A few hundred dollars more expensive than what? The Galaxy Tab 10.1 16GB seems to be going for about $500 today, which is the same price as the iPad 2. You can't compare a 10" high-end tablet to a 7" budget tablet or e-reader, they're not the same class of device.

People rag on apple for selling expensive products. The perception is largely because, while Apple's products are generally priced roughly the same as similarly spec'd products from their competitors, Apple doesn't typically sell low-end or budget devices. That is to say, their product lineup starts in the mid-range to high-end. So, they're expensive, yes, but not overpriced.

Re:Price War?

[destinyland]

It's even worse. Today Amazon just announced a surprise 32% discount on their Kindle DX tablets!

http://www.beyond-black-friday.com/2011/11/24/amazon-announces-a-black-friday-sale-on-the-kindle-dx/

Re:Price War?

[metalmaster]

I would mod you funny if i could, because you've gotta be kidding. The Kindle Fire is little more than an amazon portal that puts up the facade of being an android tablet. If you want a basic android offering that includes a web browser and limited media player by all means get a Kindle Fire. There is no way it can even compete with a tablet that offers an expandable SD slot, camera, mic and presumably android updates down the line.

I work retail and I have had plenty of time to play with our display model. The UI is a bit too simple and it's content-focused. That's great if you plan to consume amazon content, but i'd rather have an android UI and navigation

Re:Price War?

[Hognoxious]

You're not just buying a tablet, my friend, you're buying into a cult. The ipad is a bargain if you think about it like that...

Totally missed the irony for you.

Fixed your "fix".

Re:Price War?

[gstoddart]

Just make sure after you get it to come back to slashdot and respond to every anti-Apple post with anguished hostility.

Or, you know, you could try one and have an informed position instead of just mindlessly slagging the product every time it's mentioned.

My manager just bought his son's, because it wasn't compatible with the stuff he needed to do at school (Windows only class stuff). In a week he went from "meh, who cares" to "wow, I love this thing".

Maybe people like them because they find them extremely useful?

So far, mine hasn't led to the glamorous lifestyle you seem to suggest ... but I'm old, fat, and un-hip, so that wasn't ever going to happen anyway.

But for business trips and being stuck on an airplane, it's an exceedingly useful thing. I can actually read my email from the airport wifi, and watch a movie on a screen much better than the one in the plane. Throw in eBooks, games, and a couple of other things, and I haven't used my laptop on a business trip in the last 7 trips I've made. Despite claims to the contrary, a netbook would not fill the same niche because it's still a clamshell with a keyboard. My iPad is about the size of a book.

Go to the lobby bar of a hotel in a business district, and count the number of people with iPads ... and then look at them and see if you think they're hipsters who have these things for fashion purposes.

I haven't used one, but I suspect what I say is true of any tablet ... it really is a nice form-factor.

Re:Price War?

[hedwards]

For a one day sale yes, I'm not sure what Amazon gets out of it, but B&N desperately needs more mindshare going forward. I have one of the first gen Nooks, and it's really good hardware, but most of the time when I'm reading it nobody has ever heard about it. Granted that's in the general public, but still not good.

Any money they lose on them on Black Friday is almost certainly going to be money well spent. The hardware is well polished and of good quality, and I can go into a B&N store and read free books every day if I like. Really, they ought to be advertising it on TV the way that Apple and Amazon do.

Re:Price War?

[gstoddart]

Oh the irony!!!

Well, since there's neither anguish nor hostility, not so much with the irony.

But seeing people on Slashdot mindlessly say "Apple is teh suxor" is about as intelligent as saying it about Microsoft or Linux without having used them ... it's generally an uninformed opinion based on what people think they know as opposed to anything factual.

But, hey, all Linux fanboys are smelly virgins who live in their mom's basement, and all Windows fanboys must be corporate shills who don't know better ... right?

Or we could act like adults.

Re:Price War?

[danbob999]

Squaretrade made statistics with over 30,000 laptops

http://www.squaretrade.com/pages/laptop-reliability-1109/?ccode=bs_war_buyerblog

Asus came first, followed by Toshiba, in terms of reliability. Sony came better than Apple. HP was the worst. Even worse than Acer and Gateway.

Apple did slightly better than the average, but given that what they call "premium laptops" (those over $1000), which include almost all Apple laptops, also did better than the average, Apple didn't score any better than the competition.

Re:Price War?

[steveha]

You can't compare a 10" high-end tablet to a 7" budget tablet or e-reader, they're not the same class of device.

Oh, I think I can. Here, I'll do it. I'll compare the iPad 2 to the Nook Tablet.

Each is better in some ways than the other. iPad 2 has cameras and a larger screen; Nook Tablet is a convenient size for carrying, is lighter (400 grams vs. 601 grams!), and has longer battery life. Both have great screens. Both have a web browser. iPad 2 has more apps, but Nook Tablet has the apps I really care about; in particular, it has Netflix pre-loaded. Both have a 1 GHz dual-core ARM processor. The Nook Tablet has 1GB of RAM, twice as much as iPad 2, and has a claimed 11.5 hour battery life vs. iPad 2's claimed 10 hour battery life.

And Nook Tablet is literally half the price of iPad 2.

So I bought a Nook Tablet and I haven't bought an iPad.

P.S. I also have a Nook Color and I plan to root it and install CyanogenMod. It turns out that the Nook Color actually has Bluetooth hardware that was not enabled by the Nook software stack, so a rooted Nook Color makes a rather nifty little tablet.

If a bunch of Nook Color owners run out and buy a Nook Tablet, now might be a good time to pick up a used Nook Color for cheap. If you can get a new one for $200 you ought to be able to get a used one for around $100 or so. A used iPad 2 will be much more expensive than that.

I am hoping that the Nook Tablet also has hidden Bluetooth hardware, but I have not yet seen this confirmed or disproved.

steveha

Re:Price War?

[bemymonkey]

Not a cracked case, but creaky palmrests, keyboard keys becoming unresponsive, the touchpad buttons becoming loose... hell, I only had two regular laptops before switching to Thinkpdas, and both of them exhibited all those symptoms. I see it every day at university, where people are schlepping around creaky half-broken laptops with glossy screens, overpowered graphics and mediocre battery life instead of geting something that gets the job done.

Not only durability is a factor here - ergonomics play a huge role as well. A decent trackpoint like those on Thinkpads, or the touchpads on MacBooks, are worth at least a few hundred dollars on a device you use for hours every day.

And however much you want to fight it: Apple tools do get the job done, and last longer while doing it.

Re:Price War?

[jbeaupre]

Funny thing though ... the original statement was that iPads cost hundreds more. In defense of iPads, you listed a bunch of activities that make iPads worth getting. Things that Nooks and Kindle Fires do quite well by all accounts and for hundreds less.

I think you just demonstrated why Apple may have reason to worry.

BTW, I've done 2/3 the stuff you listed with a $114 Kindle (email, books, games, plus web surfing and some encryption key calculations). I'm looking to upgrade to the $99 version soon.

Re:Price War?

[Spaseboy]

Um, third party statistic Companies do satisfaction and reliability ratings and surveys all the time. Your Google ain't broke. Apple is not always the most reliable in terms of hardware but it is typically top 3 in reports (Asus is often right with them). I have yet to see a report personally that does not have Apple as number 1 in satisfaction.

Most PC laptops are of garbage build quality. The case is the only thing that differentiates PC laptops from each other and can even be the single most expensive component on a laptop and it is the prime target for reducing cost because it is the one thing OEMs have direct control over.

Re:Price War?

[Jeremy Erwin]

I'll do you one better. I use whole beans-- and then, I, get this, I GRIND THEM.

The best of both worlds.

Re:Price War?

[mikecase]

You're kidding right? All the upper tier Android tablets offer similar processor and memory specs, but with better screens (1280x800 vs 1024x768). Also, most have at least micro SD and USB slots, some have full size. Most can be had for at least $100 less than a competing iPad. And that's before the quad core Transformer Prime drops next month, which should pretty much mop the floor with the iPad 2 (similar price/size/weight, substantially better processor/batter life). Keep drinking the kool-aid.

Re:Price War?

[Xest]

"But seeing people on Slashdot mindlessly say "Apple is teh suxor" is about as intelligent as saying it about Microsoft or Linux without having used them ..."

But I do have an iPad 2 and it really is all hype. There's this mythical fantasy built up around them that they're easy to use, that they're flawless, that they're high quality, that they have loads of awesome apps, and it's simply all a load of bollocks.

Starting with build and design quality, the back of it scratches so easily, both mine and everyone's I've seen has numerous scratches on it, it's hardly a tough sturdy material that continues to look nice if you dare ever actually try and use it. The official iPad covers that flip over to protect the screen look fancy but again, after a bit of use, those manky lines that appear on the screen between the grooves resulting in a need for constant cleaning make it look naff, and tacky. There's a long history of poor build quality on Apple products too, from cracking iPhone 3GS', to far too easily scratched iPod nanos, to fire hazard magsafe power adapters, to discolouring MacBook plastics. What about the fundamentally flawed 4G antenna design?

Ease of use is another myth, there's nothing about iOS that's any easier to use than other equally priced devices, I'd argue the fact that it's so utterly app-centric is in fact a downside - Android's gadgets are far more intuitive to end users in letting them access what they want, and far more efficient to boot. The app store app on the iPad is terribly unintuitive, why when I search for something and then click the button to reset search filters does it not actually reset search filters and in fact retains the primary search text? that's not what I want- when I reset search filters it's because I want to search again. Why when I'm scrolling through a massive long list of a few thousand apps split into many pages is it than when I go into one, and go back, it returns me to the first page so I've no idea how far along the list I was and have to scroll through many more apps? What about the extremely unhelpful fact the device tries to tie itself to a person so that if multiple people in a household want to use it they find they have to jump through a massive amount of hoops because switching user accounts for certain things like social media just isn't very easy? That's on the device itself, I wont even get started on how iTunes is probably one of the most awful, buggy, unintuitive mainstream apps around in the world right now. What about the apps that only take up a small portion of the iPad in the middle of the screen "because they were designed for iPhone" - why the fuck do I have this massive tablet if I'm going to have half the apps using only a phone sized section of the screen - great, I can expand it to use the screen and just have an extremely pixelated version instead. We've been building scalable user interfaces on PCs for decades to handle a far wider range of screen resolutions - on a device whose fans espouse how awesome it is in terms of quality and ease of use was it really so hard for Apple to plan for and issue advice for producing scalable, futureproof interfaces to start with? Or we they too busy slagging off Android for fragmentation to do this, because they didn't want to look hypocritical when the same issue - also known as hardware progress - inevitably came to bite them?

The choice of apps isn't as good as often hyped either, there's the obvious - that because of Apple's strict policies you're stuck with a god awful piss poor keyboard that can't even touch the likes of Swype on my phone (my phone is Android), through to the slightly less talked about - that all those great looking apps you see demo'd are pretty fucking hollow when you come to use them. That app on the adverts showing a planet or whatever? no it's not the exciting looking app that looks like it'll let you explore the solar system in great depth using just your fingers, it's a few largely static pages of rather basic factual information. The spr

Playbook as well

[Anonymous Coward]

The Blackberry Playbook has it's price slashed, and it is a signal of the end.

Android/Apple price slash - PRICE WAR!

Re:Playbook as well

[paimin]

What's a Blackberry? :-D

Re:Playbook as well

[somersault]

Trust me, you don't want to find out. D-:

61 off the highest end iPad 2

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hardly a price war.

Give it a rest

[artor3]

That's not a price war. The Kindle dropped their prices a while ago, not as part of some Black Friday promotion. And the iPad is in a completely different class of devices. I guess you might say that they're offering the sale to dissuade people from getting the Kindle Fire this Christmas, but the more likely scenario is that all of these are just standard Black Friday deals. This is less of a story and more like one of those snail mail sales flyers they spam out every week.

But hey, it will give all the fanboys a reason to argue over which device is best, which I suppose was the whole point.

Re:Give it a rest

[Spad]

Everything is a war these days, every new product an [other product]-killer; people don't disagree with someone, they "slam" them or "destroy" them.

Let's face it, if it's not totally over the top and blown out of all proportion, very few sections of the media will care enough to publish it.

$79 Kindle with "Special Offers"

[Vecanti]

I notice there are two types of Kindles. Those that say Kindle and those that say, Kindle "with Special Offers". The $79 is with special offers. My understanding is that it will display ads for the entire life of the device for the cost saving over the normal price, is this true? It's a $109 without special offers.

The Nook is $79 with no ads.

I have no interest in either, but I wonder how many people are going to be WTF!? this christmas with their Kindle's as they didn't notice the "Special Offers" thing.

Re:$79 Kindle with "Special Offers"

[Anonymous Coward]

The ads are fullscreen as a screen saver only... The rest of the time it is a little banner on the screen, except when reading, then the ads are not seen at all. You can also disable the ads anytime you want and Amazon will debit the amount to match the price of an unsubsidized model.

Re:Kindle Touch is still at $99

[modmans2ndcoming]

How does the nook touch beat the kindle touch in hardware? Seriously because I want to get an e-reader but want the best value.

Funny - yes - but true

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys; the above, although funny, is exactly the business and marketing explanation for Apple products. Another example of this marketing a "lifestyle" is Harley Davidson Motorcycles. I'm just surprised Apple hasn't gotten into logo'd apparel yet.

Saint Steven Jobs was the greatest salesmen and marketer that has ever existed. And I'd dare say, St. Jobs will be the best that will ever be.

Re:Funny - yes - but true

[Em Adespoton]

Guys; the above, although funny, is exactly the business and marketing explanation for Apple products. Another example of this marketing a "lifestyle" is Harley Davidson Motorcycles. I'm just surprised Apple hasn't gotten into logo'd apparel yet.

Saint Steven Jobs was the greatest salesmen and marketer that has ever existed. And I'd dare say, St. Jobs will be the best that will ever be.

Apple doesn't need logo'd apparrel. They'd prefer you to just buy one of their products and wear it as a talisman :) That way they don't have to make as many sizes and styles.

Re:Funny - yes - but true

[Bogtha]

the above, although funny, is exactly the business and marketing explanation for Apple products

It's really not. This is the excuse trotted out when somebody wants to flame Apple or Apple fanboys, but it really doesn't hold up to the slightest scrutiny. Take a look at their ads. They are all about what you can do with the devices. They are renown for focusing on what you can do with the devices.

Do you really believe that Apple is managing to brainwash people? That there isn't a more plausible explanation, such as the fact that they see an ad showing people using the devices in ways that appeal to them and want to buy them? That people try the competition and are less than thrilled, so they opt for the premium product that does what they want instead? If you really believe that marketing brainwashing is a more plausible explanation than that, I'm afraid you're the one who's brainwashed.

Re:Funny - yes - but true

[NormalVisual]

How in the fuck were the Apple II or the original Mac "leaps forward" of the competition?

Apple II: For one, it came fully assembled with a keyboard, power supply, high-res color graphics, NTSC video output, and a case. Not much else in mid-1977 could make that claim.

Mac: At the time, it was the only usable GUI-based machine available at a reasonable price, and being 68000-based, it had quite a bit more CPU horsepower at its disposal than most other machines, had an 8-bit DAC as standard equipment, onboard SCSI, etc. The Lisa had been out for a short while with a similar feature set, but Apple had priced it outside the reach of most people. IBM's XT couldn't touch it performance-wise, and while IBM had introduced their AT around the same time, it was quite some time before any software could actually take advantage of the 80286 processor to do anything particularly interesting.

Re:Funny - yes - but true

[nomadic]

Take a look at their ads. They are all about what you can do with the devices. They are renown for focusing on what you can do with the devices.

Exactly, like dancing in silhouette.

Re:Funny - yes - but true

[johny42]

Imagine that - an advert for a music player that focuses on a person enjoying music. Yeah, it was stylised, but when you look at the bare essence of the advert, it's about what the product can do for you, not brainwashing people into thinking they are buying a lifestyle.

There's more to an ad than its bare essence. Probably their most famous campaign presents Mac as "the cool guy" as opposed to PC. Most of the ads focus on features, but the message is still there. Even in the ads that focus on people using Apple products in various way, it's always cool people using them.

Now, I agree that Apple has a lot of high quality products, but there are other companies that sell high quality, well-designed products, and Apple is clearly trying to get an edge over them by "selling a lifestyle". There's nothing wrong with this, most companies that sell high quality products are trying to do that (with various levels of success) -- fashion ads are another good example (wearing Victoria's Secret lingerie doesn't make you a supermodel, but they'd like you to believe so anyway).

Re:Funny - yes - but true

[slasho81]

The majority of Apple marketing, both in time and money, is product placement - showing Apple products in the hands of characters in TV series and movies. It's all about the perception that everyone uses it (or at least everyone that matters).

Re:Funny - yes - but true

[Xest]

"Take a look at their ads. They are all about what you can do with the devices."

Yes, I have an iPad2 and you're right.

Unfortunately however being able to randomly slide screens around, and use half-arsed versions of applications that only do 1/100th of what their counterparts on my PC or laptop do is the reason it's just sat uncharged because being arsed to plugged it in to charge it nowadays requires more effort than any resultant benefit the device can provide to my life to be worthwhile. I suppose if I didn't have a PC attached to my TV then it might be useful as a £400 web browser in the living room at least.

"They are renown for focusing on what you can do with the devices."

No, that's quite the opposite of what they're known for, Apple devices have long been known to let you do less, with the argument that what they do let you do, they let you do more comfortably. Certainly what you do with Apple devices has never been stand out, they've always been quite limited and restrictive whether it was the limited selection of file formats on the early iPods, or the strict lockdown and limitation of applications on the iPhone and iPad.

"If you really believe that marketing brainwashing is a more plausible explanation than that, I'm afraid you're the one who's brainwashed."

Whilst your attempt at the use of the word brainwashing to make it look like some mystical unexplained power is cute, you've got to be quite naive to believe that companies don't rely on common human psychological traits to push a products sales or price higher than it would otherwise be worth. If you hadn't noticed, there are entire industries built around just that, fashion, and modern art are two you can start with. If however rather than cold hard examples like this you prefer the theoretical, then feel free to go and read about consumerism.

Contrary to the hype, Apple products aren't more secure, aren't any less buggy, don't have more features, aren't any easier to use, aren't of any higher quality, and don't always even look any more stylish than all of their competitors. Above all else what separates Apple from the rest is that they've built a brand that allows them to shift units regardless of any downsides to their products in much the same way that some people will gladly squeeze into an uncomfortable pair of Armani jeans and insist on showing them off, simply because they say Armani on them.

Re:Do you have to live in USA?

[Guspaz]

Depends for what store. A lot of Canadian stores have Black Friday deals, even though Thanksgiving was over a month ago here. Some US stores which operate or ship to Canada have the sales, like NewEgg (although their sale this year for Canada sucks).

Steam's prices are the same in every country, and they've got some amazing deals. Yesterday had Mass Effect 2 (or 1) for $5, Portal 2 for $10, that sort of thing. That sale is over, but there's a new set for today, and there's some less aggressive sales that are valid all week.

Re:Playbook?

[93 Escort Wagon]

And...you know....Playbooks. Not sure why RIM always gets left out of the equation when their device is just as good as anything non-apple.

Has RIM rewritten its OS so the Playbook is no longer partially crippled unless you also carry a Blackberry with you? Because, if not, it's only "as good as" those other devices if you're a Blackberry owner - and there are fewer and fewer of those every day.

Re:The iPad Wins

[Nerdfest]

Right. That's why there's all those HP tablets still lying around. A good percentage of people seem to feel the a tablet is not worth the price Apple is charging. Another fairly large group of people seem to disagree with many of Apple's restrictions. Both of these groups have somewhat limited options, but that is changing. In 5 years the tablet market will match the smartphone market, assuming Apple doesn't cripple all potential competition with lawsuits.

Re:The iPad Wins

[Curunir_wolf]

I'm going to tell you guys an important secret: nobody except nerds wants a non-iPad tablet. Everybody wants the iPad, and if you buy somebody a different tablet, they will be secretly angry about you. You can nerd-rage about this all you want, but it is true. As has been said before: there is not a tablet market, there is an iPad market.

Meh. I doubt that's true. A friend of mine (very non-geek) has an iPad, and her son recently came home with a Nook Tablet. She likes it better than the iPad.

Unfortunately, it looks like Amazon is going to sell a lot of Kindle Fires to non-geeks just because they have better marketing, and a lot of people won't look at or even know about the Nook tablets, which are much better products.

Re:Kindle Touch is still at $99

[willoughby]

Amazon missed the boat on one feature. With my Nook Touch I can hold it in one hand and press the hardware buttons on either side to turn the pages. With no hardware page-turn buttons on the Kindle touch you must tap or swipe the screen to turn a page, so it takes two hands to read a book. But, maybe I'm the only person who sometimes holds their e-reader with one hand.

Apple's pricing: "announced" or "reportedly"?

[DavidinAla]

Did anybody notice the bizarro contradiction in the description of this story? If Apple had "announced aggressive pricing," the referenced article wouldn't be talking about what Apple was "reportedly" going to do. It can be announced OR it can be just rumored. You can't reasonably use both words.

"And meanwhile, Apple has announced aggressive pricing on all Apple products for Black Friday, reportedly including $100 off on MacBook and iMac products, and a $61 discount on the iPad 2."

Re:Kindle Touch is still at $99

[steveha]

I got the Nook Simple Touch because I really wanted a physical button for turning pages. I have been quite happy with the device.

My Nook is currently on loan to my father, whose hands shake a bit. He has real trouble with any touchscreen device; touchscreens are designed to do things when you touch them, and with his hands shaking he keeps doing things he didn't mean to do. With the Nook Simple Touch he can hold his hands on the bezel and use the hardware buttons to flip pages. (He's still having some trouble with it, but I think once he gets used to it he won't have any more trouble. But any device without hardware buttons is ruled out for him.)

Also, I really like the way Barnes and Noble designed their Nooks to take standard protective covers. You can choose from a variety of covers, with various features and colors and price points. I got a simple cover that can be secured with a permanently-attached elastic band, so that if I throw it in a backpack, the cover will stay closed.

I paid $140 for my Nook and I am satisfied that it was money well spent. I might just go pick up one of the $80 ones tomorrow.

steveha

Re:Kindle Touch is still at $99

[Abstrackt]

But, maybe I'm the only person who sometimes holds their e-reader with one hand.

ASCII porn certainly isn't what it used to be.

Re:Kindle Touch is still at $99

[fyngyrz]

Perverts. Binary pron is the only respectable pron. "You're the one!" "the power of two!" "Shift a bit left, would you? Ah, that's twice as good..."

Thanks, I'll be here all day. Try the veal.

Re:Pathetic.

[element-o.p.]

Being smart would be buying on Black Friday and saving a shit ton of money.

It's only smart if the time you spend camping outside of the store and fighting the mob inside the store is worth less to you than the difference in price. My time is valuable; wasting it on Black Friday shopping is a poor choice, IMHO.