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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

$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

[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.

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.