Dell Kills Streak 7, Bails On Android Tablets

An anonymous reader writes with this news from Network World: "Dell has yanked the Dell Streak 7 tablet computer from its online stores, quietly acknowledging the failure of the Android device to catch on with consumers as the company redirects its tablet focus to combination work/play products. Word of the Streak 7's disappearance follows by a few months the death of the Streak 5, which debuted in summer 2010. The dual-core processor-powered Dell Streak 7 became available in January, marketed as a 4G wireless tablet via T-Mobile's network. Now Dell is directing would-be Streak buyers to Android and Windows Phone smartphones, and pushing a line of Windows Phone tablets for business."

Comments

This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Same stuff they will always pull as long as they accept MS as their supreme overlord

Re:This is Dell

[bonch]

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.

Re:This is Dell

[Colonel Korn]

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.

This quarter the iPad is hitting 65% market share. That's a lot, but remember it started the year in the high 90s. The only thing that might keep Android from being the top tablet platform in 2013 is Windows 8, and that's a long shot.

Re:This is Dell

[trum4n]

People who buy android typically are smart enough to NOT buy a dell.

Re:This is Dell

[vlm]

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.

Its all in the price. Apparently a tablet that is worth about a quarter of an ipad sells really good at a quarter of an ipad price. Trying to sell "not as good as an ipad" for same or higher price doesn't work so well.

Re:This is Dell

[robthebloke]

It's still available on the UK site.....

Re:This is Dell

[Desler]

And Android marketshare went from 34% to 26%. iPad is also expected to grow back to 75% share.

Re:This is Dell

[jmorris42]

> I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.

Let me revise and extend you remark to make it more accurate:

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets at close to iPad prices.

Google has been playing games by withholding the source and access to the Market to all of the no-name products while ensuring all of the brand name ones keep their prices out of 'commodity' territory. Now that 4.0 is available perhaps they will allow the clones into the Market and prices to seek their own level. We shall then see if consumers are interested in Android tablets at half the price of an iProduct.

Personally I have zero interest in them at current pricing. They cost a lot more than a netbook yet have less stuff inside and no MIcrosoft tax to explain the higher price. And while the form factor is interesting, the price they pay is being less generally useful than a netbook or laptop. But get em down under $200 for fully equipped ones (GPS, BT, WiFi-n, camera, 1GHz+ CPU, good display) and I suspect uptake will pick up. But the Android forces have pretty much lost this Xmas selling season because there ain't no way products based on 4.0 will make it to stores in quantity this year.

Re:This is Dell

[squiggleslash]

More likely it had to do with a complete lack of consumer interest in small, low resolution, pre-Honeycomb, Android tablets. Everyone from Lenovo to Archos is producing better tablets in that price and specification range.

I still don't know why people want tablets. I have a Lenovo 10" myself and don't see what the big deal is. But I can honestly say that there's no way people who want them are going to settle for something like the Streak. It doesn't make sense on any level.

Re:This is Dell

[the linux geek]

People who buy Android are typically people upgrading from a feature phone to a cheap smartphone.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

People who buy Android are typically people upgrading from a feature phone to a cheap smartphone.

No doubt true for some, but otherwise this is pure conjecture.

Re:This is Dell

[ArhcAngel]

You're half right. While it is true that consumers have an almost complete lack of interest in Android they have an equal lack of interest in IOS. Consumers want gadgets but only if the gadgets high techiness is able to get out of the way and the consumer can do cool things without knowing too much. This is where IOS excels and Android has faltered...until now. While handset OEMs have focused on prettying up the interface to distinguish themselves Barnes & Noble flat out covered up the underlying Android base and focused on User Experience as much as UI. They also hit a price point that was palatable for more of the masses by leaving out the ubiquitous front and rear cameras and a few other bells and whistles and not skimping on the screen or touch interface. Of course the Android community likes to point out how easily hackable the device is but I'm reasonably sure total sales were not overly impacted by this fact. The success of the NC got Amazon's attention and Bezos & Co. have now launched the Kindle Fire. For all intents and purposes a BlackBerry PlayBook without cameras and running Android. The Fire has taken the NC concept and gone even further. By tying the Fire to amazon's cloud services they seek to capture the kind of repeat business Apple has using iTunes. For /. aficionados these devices are toys but for Joe Average these are just what the Dr. ordered. And at $199 entry point they are right at impulse buy territory.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

You are getting this 65% market share from android manufacturers SHIPPING numbers. Those tablets aren't being sold. Who cares if Android manufacturers shipped 35% of the tablets out there when almost none (aside from the fire) were sold?

Re:This is Dell

[thsths]

To be honest, who in a right mind would be interested in a Froyo (!) tablet with smartphone resolution (yes, my basement price smartphone has the same resolution) for a price rather close to an iPad? It is not a selling proposition, and it took Dell a very long time to realise that. And don't mention cost - the customer does not care one bit about cost.

Re:This is Dell

[hitmark]

Or to put it in a different way, people are not willing to spend more on a lesser known quantity. Lets face it, Apple have become very well known the last couple of years...

Re:This is Dell

[gfxguy]

True for me, but I don't see what the problem is...

Re:This is Dell

[gfxguy]

I just bought 3 Nook Touches. I honestly don't see the point in tablets at all, but that's just me. The wife and kids all wanted them, though, and were satisfied with the specs. They know they aren't getting iPads. Just saying... my daughter just had her birthday, and the other two are for Christmas... I think these devices are selling wildly for Christmas.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

I upgraded to Android from iPhone... therefore your conjecture is wrong. I am proof.

Re:This is Dell

[Adriax]

My droid x was a free upgrade and has done everything I've wanted.
What exactly is the problem here?

Re:This is Dell

[the linux geek]

GP was making assumptions about how "smart" Android buyers are. Most of them aren't nerds. Most of them are ordinary people buying the non-fruit-flavored smartphone platform that doesn't cost an enormous amount.

Find where I said there was a "problem."

Re:This is Dell

[arkane1234]

LOL he's an apple "fanboy" because he dislikes Dell?

Poser.

Re:This is Dell

[justsayin]

And that is the problem. Most people are below average, ;) Place your product where it takes a smart person to use it and you're doomed.

Re:This is Dell

[slew]

... Most people are below average...

Citation please. That implies that the "smart" are way smarter than the "dumb" are dumb. In my experience, the smart really aren't as smart as they think they are and the dumb folks aren't that dumb as they are told they are.

Re:This is Dell

[Adriax]

By call them "cheap smartphones" you invoke images of flimsy feature-less hunks of plastic that can barely qualify for the smart- prefix.

Try using "less expensive" next time, the tablet and smartphone markets are flooded with chinese knockoffs and 3rd shift runs that very much qualify for the "cheap" designation. It's best to draw a very clear line between what you mean and what they make.

Re:This is Dell

[RoverDaddy]

Or perhaps they want a physical keyboard (a friend of mine has chosen Android over iPhone for exactly this reason).

Re:This is Dell

[shutdown -p now]

Asus is selling 300k units per month of theirs. Lack of interest? Just because it doesn't have a pre-existing audience that would happily buy it even if it was a turd in a white box with Apple logo on it, doesn't mean there's no interest.

Streak failed because it was just plain not good. It shipped with Android 2.2 (not even 2.3), and they have only started rolling out Honeycomb in October - while all their competitors had Honeycomb tablets selling for months.

Re:This is Dell

[Curunir_wolf]

The Nook Touch is not a tablet - it's a book reader. Maybe what they really wanted was Nook Tablets. They might be kind of disappointed if they are expecting an iPad alternative and end up with an e-reader instead. Just sayin'.

Re:This is Dell

[Curunir_wolf]

Amazon has the superior marketing position, so they will probably do very well with that Fire product. Which is kind of a shame, really, because the like-priced Nook Color is better device, and for $50 more the Nook Tablet is far superior.

I had kind of decided I was going to plop down $150 for a refurbished NC myself, but then I compared it to the Nook Tablet at the B&N, and I don't think I'd be as happy with the Color. If it wasn't for the locked bootloader I'd probably have one by now.

Re:This is Dell

[Old97]

No Apple product is half as good as anything from HP, Dell, IBM or Sony (though IBM doesn't make PCs anymore). Apple products are at least twice as good as products from these companies that are intended to compete with theirs.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Those HP Touchpads really skewed the figures, huh?

Re:This is Dell

[jedidiah]

When I visited an aunt recently, I was surprised to find that she went and bought herself an Android tablet. Surprisingly enough it was a model that I had been eyeballing myself.

Not everyone buys an Apple product by default.

Re:This is Dell

[jedidiah]

Mine is no cheaper than an iPhone.

Both brands of phone are subsidized at similar levels.

If Apple doesn't have a "can't be bothered to pay more" option then that is by no means the fault of Android. That merely represents a group of customers that Apple chooses to ignore. So it is good that Apple isn't a monopoly.

Being willing to ignore wide swaths of the market is nothing to brag about.

Re:This is Dell

[morgauxo]

I think Android Tablets have been hurt by all the cheap stuff that was released with old versions of Android that don't include the Google Marketplace. Sure.. Google warned it wasn't ready but consumers don't listen. They got burnt and will shy away from Android tablets for quite a while to come even though the newer ones should be just fine. Google should have rushed a tablet market place out for the old "smartphone-only" OSs even if they sucked on the Tablet. By not doing so they just made it worse.

Sadly, IOS is going to be king for a while.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Source? I bet you it's some fanboi site.

With the Kindle Fire selling more units these few months than any other tablet PERIOD this christmas season, it's hard to say that the marketshare is going down.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people cannot be below average. There aren't enough hyper-geniuses in the world to make up for the throngs of morons.

Re:This is Dell

[BitZtream]

Yea, having standards of quality and user experience is nothing to brag about.

Re:This is Dell

[bberens]

We're getting a nice 7" tablet for $100 for my daughter for Christmas. She's 4. We were initially going to get one of those Leapfrog or whatever "computers" but that was $100 and each app/cartridge is in the $10-15 range. Buying the $100 tablet was an easy decision. And yes, it's a Chinese knockoff.

Re:This is Dell

[cayenne8]

The Nook Touch is not a tablet - it's a book reader.

I beg to differ..they *can* be a full blown tablet.

You root them and put cyanogenmod7 on them and voila...great little tablet.

If you don't wanna go fully down that path, and keep it nook-ish (keep your warranty)...just install the cynanogen7 on a micro-SD card and boot from that and you can be in android tablet....and when tired of that (I guess it could happen), take out the microSD card and reboot back into normal B&N rom.

Re:This is Dell

[cayenne8]

...but then I compared it to the Nook Tablet at the B&N, and I don't think I'd be as happy with the Color. If it wasn't for the locked bootloader I'd probably have one by now.

Do a little research...the locked bootloader isn't a problem anymore, it has been overcome.

Re:This is Dell

[BitZtream]

My iPhone - When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS. If the OS is incapable of smooth scrolling, its a shitty OS, I don't care WHAT it is under the hood or who's fault it is. And I'm sure you'll (or some other fanboy) name off some device that 'scrolls perfectly' and it won't, you'll just be oblivious to the fact that you've never seen it done right.

My Mac Book - When purchased, Dell, HP, IBM, Sony did not offer a laptop with the same hardware for the same price, sorry to burst your bubble, but not everyone buys $250 el cheapo netbooks. And the only place I can get a good Unix desktop.

My Mac Mini Server - Simply won't find anything with this power in this form factor and this OS, which fits my how perfectly.

Time Capsule/Airport Base Station - You can find stuff that does basically the same thing ... when it works ... and when you aren't having some sort of issue with their shitty software ... No, in fact there is nothing that compares to a Time Capsule.

Now I realize fully that I could spend far less cash and cobble together all of this shit on my own with a bunch of OSS software, but it wouldn't work nearly as well, and I'd have to maintain it ... worry about upgrades, reintegrating software, getting everything to play nicely together. I could spend hours a month just keeping up with updates ...

Or

I just buy something that doesn't suck ass and works well together.

Real peple who code their own kernals and IP packets no better!

What are you like 12 years old? Dude I have real shit to do. I'm sorry you're life is so boring and poor that you think hand writing an IP packet is something to be proud of, let me give you a hint ... it isn't. Neither is writing your own kernel for no other reason than to do it. I most certainly have the capability to do so, and in fact have done so on more than one occasion ... WHEN I NEEDED my own kernel for a microcontroller or to simulate some bad packets for testing a network stack.

I do not however go around acting like I'm bad ass because I can do something that every intelligent person uses a computer to do automatically. You're bragging about being able to do something by hand that EVERYONE ELSE in the world realized they didn't want to do by hand and so they automated it ... If you were nearly as hard core as you'd like to pretend, you'd be using a can-and-string system to communicate rather than all these computers that simplify things for you.

In short, you're an idiot.

Re:This is Dell

[oakgrove]

Streak failed because it was just plain not good.

This a thousand thousand times. I've walked several people into Best Buy who were ready to buy tablets and explained the pros and cons of the various models. Not a single person has given the Streak a second glance. They usually go for the Transformer.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

therefore your conjecture is wrong. I am proof

Ah, another jackass who thinks "anecdote" and "evidence" are synonymous, and doesn't understand what "typically" means.

Re:This is Dell

[Andy Dodd]

Also, it was one of the many pre- Honeycomb Android tablets that never really caught on... Had the device been a Honeycomb device from the get-go (not possible given its release date...) it probably would have done much better.

Dell has, in general, failed to execute properly when it comes to Android. The Streak 5 was "meh" and didn't catch on, while Samsung's Galaxy Note is proving popular. Similarly, the Streak 7 was a dud, while Samsung's Galaxy Tab series did well enough to spawn a variety of Honeycomb devices in multiple screen sizes (10.1, 8.9, and the new 7.0 Plus).

Re:This is Dell

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

err, turd in a white box? First gen AppleTV, iPod HiFi... I could name a few actual turds in a white box with fruit stamped on the side.

The audience for any given apple product isn't preexisting because we're all hard wired to automatically lust after anything from Cupertino.

Re:This is Dell

[Andy Dodd]

Even my HTC Rhodium running xdandroid (about as far from an officially supported Android port as one can get - the device was a native Windows Mobile device and had a fairly weak CPU) had no problem scrolling through menus.

Re:This is Dell

[Curunir_wolf]

The Nook Touch is not a tablet - it's a book reader.

I beg to differ..they *can* be a full blown tablet.

You root them and put cyanogenmod7 on them and voila...great little tablet.

Isn't the e-ink screen going to make it painful for a lot of functions, though?

Re:This is Dell

[Andy Dodd]

I have a netbook I almost never touch, and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 with a Bluetooth keyboard. There is one main reasn I use the Tab 10.1 - portability.

Portability is not just about the size - the Tab 10.1 is a little better than the netbook in size but not by much.

Where it blows away the netbook in portability is turn-on time and battery life - It gets the same "screen on" time as the netbook, but unlike the netbook, I can put it to sleep and wake it up in less than a second, and its battery life while sleeping is VERY good (maybe 5%/day sleep drain).

As a result I rarely need to carry a charger around, and when I get somewhere, I can immediately turn it on and start using it.

Re:This is Dell

[Andy Dodd]

Where's your evidence to back this?

If Asus Transformers weren't shipping, then why was it impossible to order one that wasn't being price-scalped for at least 2-3 months after release? Even the traditional "non-scalping" vendors like Amazon were selling for $20-30 above MSRP.

Even after devices stopped being unobtainium, accessories were selling like crazy - even in June it was impossible to find chargers for the device.

Similarly - you are utterly and completely deluded if you think that a manufacturer would keep shipping tablets that weren't selling, and that retailers would keep these devices on the shelves. If you seriously think this is possible, I have one word for you: Touchpad.

Do you REALLY think Samsung is stupid enough to release two new tablet variants (the Tab 8.9 and the Tab 7.0 Plus) if the Tab 10.1 isn't selling well? If there's so little demand for the Tab 10.1, why is Apple so afraid of it?

Re:This is Dell

[gfxguy]

Ok, Sheldon, I meant "tablet."

Re:This is Dell

[Desler]

IDC. The same place the person i responded to got the iPad share figures from.

Re:This is Dell

[Desler]

If that were true why did the iPad marketshare increase by 3% in the same quarter?

Re:This is Dell

[Eponymous Hero]

just the phrase itself, "most people are below average," is a contradiction. translation: "average people are below average."

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post.

show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling

Probably not going to happen while UI is happening through the Dalvik JVM. They probably used Java to make Android more appealing to devs.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded an app for Streak 7 that let me browse my directory tree, get to my SD card and move a pdf over to my tablet and view it with the acrobat viewer app I downloaded.
When you can do that with an ipad with out hacking the tar out of it, I might think about upgrading.

It also helps that I got my Streak for almost 50% off ;)

Re:This is Dell

[cayenne8]

Isn't the e-ink screen going to make it painful for a lot of functions, though?

My bad...I read the parent as using a Nook Color...not the eInk thing....

Re:This is Dell

[Nemyst]

Fuck this absolutely stupid argument.

Do you really think all those tablet manufacturers make money from showing big numbers? No, they make money from selling, and if it doesn't sell, they pull it, just like Dell did. The same argument was raised about Android smartphones, but oddly enough we don't hear it all that much nowadays.

Re:This is Dell

[LordLucless]

In making your rant against Android fanboys (apparently anyone who doesn't have a problem with their Android phone is a fanboy...) you come across as the worst stereotype of an Apple fanboy.

When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS

Really? So it doesn't matter whether your device loses all signal when you hold it wrong, or if it churns through its battery in under a day after a software update, or if it prevents you from installing any apps that compete with those published by its maker, no, none of these matter. The sole criteria on which to judge the worthiness of a mobile platform is a minor graphical bug that has no real bearing on usability.

And if anybody claims that actually, they haven't seen that particular bug on their device, they're an ignorant fanboy whose opinion can be discounted.

Re:This is Dell

[Curunir_wolf]

Isn't the e-ink screen going to make it painful for a lot of functions, though?

My bad...I read the parent as using a Nook Color...not the eInk thing....

Ya I actually researched it a little. Cyanogenmod doesn't currently have a version that will run on a Touch at all. There was some interest in the forums, but even more comments wondering how useful it would even be...

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, put the kool-aid down. Steve Jobs is dead, you can stop sucking his dick now. Geez.

Re:This is Dell

[vlm]

I downloaded an app for Streak 7 that let me browse my directory tree, get to my SD card and move a pdf over to my tablet and view it with the acrobat viewer app I downloaded.
When you can do that with an ipad with out hacking the tar out of it, I might think about upgrading.

I just use cloudreader, and upload stuff from whereever I get it up the http interface (make the right clicks on cloudreader and it acts as a http server for anything else on its network). Simple fast easy don't need to fiddle with SD cards.

The main reason to respond is your subtle Freudian slip there "I might think about upgrading". In other words, even to you, an ipad is an upgrade from android...

Note that every "non-glowing positive" comment about android tablets is automatically assumed to be a ipad fanboy. That was not my intent. All I'm saying is the original poster is completely wrong, the market has not shown a lack of interest in android tablets, its shown a lack of interest in OVERPRICED android tablets. There is intense staggering market demand when android tablets are closed out or discontinued at a reasonable price.

Some day my ipad-1 will die. Cracked, or the 43 step battery replacement procedure freaks me out, or whatever. I might buy another ipad, might buy an android tablet. But theres no way in heck I'm buying an overpriced android tablet. A properly priced android tablet, maybe ... maybe. But I'm not paying 4 times what I think its worth.

Re:This is Dell

[vlm]

Or to put it in a different way, people are not willing to spend more on a lesser known quantity. Lets face it, Apple have become very well known the last couple of years...

Folks in the PC market were trained for years that "yeah an intel mac is just a PC but you pay twice the cost of the hardware to get the OSX software".

OK... for the sake of this argument I'll say I believe that. Personally I think it's wrong, but its a very popular viewpoint. I'll run with it and pretend.

So, the $400 ipad comes out. I've been trained that means the hardware costs $200 and you're paying $200 for the fancy apple software. OK here comes this android thing that is all free and open and stuff. That means I'll still be paying $200 for the hardware, but it'll be free software like linux and so I expect to pay $200 for this android tablet. What you say? List price $600 for the android tablet? F it, I'm not paying any more than $250 for it at most, I'm getting a "fairer" deal with the ipad.

Actually this is a pretty good question. How come ipads are not dramatically more expensive than android tablets? A kindle Fire should cost about as much as a "Regular old Kindle".. right? Its just a different software load, at least to a non-technical user. But no, its like twice as much... F that, I'm either buying a plain Kindle or a full fledged ipad. Remember the market placement disaster of the Edsel?

Re:This is Dell

[PerfectionLost]

I have to say, Mac servers spew so much heat out of the back end we needed a spot cooler just for them.

Beyond that your list is fair.

I often find my GF's android incredibly sluggish. I've seen some nice ones around the office, but they seem to be the exception, rather then the expectation.

Re:This is Dell

[Niomosy]

Trained? I priced out a Macbook Pro 15 similar to the XPS 15 I purchased. Same i7 CPU. 4gb RAM instead of 6gb on my Dell. Slightly larger-but-slower HDD and better graphics card. No bluray on either. Final cost? $2199 for the Apple. $899 for the Dell. That's over double the cost with the Mac lacking USB 3.0 and e-Sata ports.

The reason why iPads aren't more expensive than Android tablets is that Android tablet makers thought they could price the same as Apple and do well. Apple set the tablet pricing and others followed rather than realizing they should be setting lower rather than even with Apple.

Re:This is Dell

[Niomosy]

Actually, Android devices sold quite well when priced well. Best Buy had Acer A100 7" tabs for $189 and 10" Acer A500 tabs selling for $229. They had the Asus Transformer up for $250 for Black Friday and currently have it for $299. Newegg sold out on the Toshiba Thrive instantly as did Amazon when they put it up, both at $199. Kmart sold out on their mis-price of the Acer A500 as well at $212 or so.

Android devices can sell. It's just that makers are going to need to realize that people aren't willing to pay the $500 for an Android tablet that they are for an Apple tablet.

That said, I think Google needs to work on it if they want a decent shot at the tablet market. One thing I've been hearing more and more are comments regarding Windows 8 tablets. Even with the atrocious metro UI, the ability to switch to a full-blown OS with plenty of app selection is enticing for many.

Re:This is Dell

[DaFallus]

My iPhone - When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS. If the OS is incapable of smooth scrolling, its a shitty OS, I don't care WHAT it is under the hood or who's fault it is. And I'm sure you'll (or some other fanboy) name off some device that 'scrolls perfectly' and it won't, you'll just be oblivious to the fact that you've never seen it done right.

Wow, way to state your incouragble bias right at the end there. It sounds like, in your eyes, the only "right" way is the Apple way. You'd fit right in on the ID side of an evolution debate...

Re:This is Dell

[RocketRabbit]

2013? That's a long way off, and predictions like this always have a way of failing.

The problem is that there's really no money in Android tablets unless you're Google.

Re:This is Dell

[RocketRabbit]

I think this is the point. People don't buy Android phones - cell phone carriers do. They roll the phone into the cost of the plan.

About the only phones that people actually pay cash for, up front, before the plan is even activated, are iPhones.

Re:This is Dell

[RocketRabbit]

The XPS is a big, thick, ugly, hunk of plastic shit. It's a fucking Dell man.

Yes, you can get a thicker, plastic Dell for less than a Macbook Pro. This has always been true. If you start looking at the thinner, lighter laptops that are made of real metal, the ones that are actually crafted to compete with Apple's laptops instead of with the generic Winblowz hunks of creaking shit out there, they cost the same or more than the Apples. If you add in the cost of Windows Ultimate (IE something with almost all the functionality of OS X instead of a neutered starter OS with training wheels) you will exceed the Apple option in cost.

Re:This is Dell

[laffer1]

The Mac Pro. I have yet to find a workstation comparable to a Mac Pro in the last few years.

Btw I have my own operating system project. :)

Re:This is Dell

[rtb61]

Which of course points to the reason Dell is dropping Android tablets, it is finding it difficult to compete directly against the ODMs, Other Device Manufacturers, the companies who actually make computers. Apple is in the same sinking boat, it is inevitable that the ODMs will win, when it all becomes about reaching price/hardware performance points.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

If you hate your family and want to move in with "dad's best friend" then just do the divorce thing like a normal person. No need to be passive-aggressive about it.

Re:This is Dell

[rapidreload]

Wow, way to state your incouragble bias right at the end there. It sounds like, in your eyes, the only "right" way is the Apple way. You'd fit right in on the ID side of an evolution debate...

I'm no Apple fanboy, but how can you respond like that? He just said that if a modern OS cannot perform smooth scrolling, it's a shitty OS, and I'd agree. People have standards when it comes to UI, and it's nothing to do with the "Apple way"... unless of course you've become accustomed to the high interface standards Apple are known for and hence are less tolerable than Linux users I guess.

Re:This is Dell

[Niomosy]

Try the XPS 15z. Metal case. Same weight and thickness as a Macbook Pro. Still much less. $1299 vs. $2249. Twice the RAM, 1080p screen, USB 3.0 and e-Sata ports on the Dell. Better graphics card, Firewire and Thunderbolt on the MBP.

Re:This is Dell

[jmorris42]

> Even with the atrocious metro UI, the ability to switch to a full-blown OS with plenty of app selection is enticing for many.

Except of course WE know that is a lie. Tablets with x86 processors are heavy beasts with short battery life and ARM tablets only get Metro instead of the full Windows desktop. I suspect there will be much wailing when end users plump down premium cash for em and then realize they have the smallest app base of any of the tablets while the marketing whispered sweet promises of it being "Windows."

Of course if Intel actually manages to get a CPU that can compete with ARM everything changes. But they have been throwing Sagans of cash at the power problem now for years with little to show for it. A 'low power' netbook or even ultrabook has several times the battery capacity of a large tablet's power source and compared to a phone it isn't even close. Most people's smart phone has a couple (as in way under ten) of Watt/Hours in the battery and that has to run several (2G, 3G, 4G, WiFi, BT, GPS, NFC, FM) radios, four or more processing cores (my cheap ass phone has modem CPU, modem DSP, GPU, CPU, DSP) and keep the DRAM refreshing, run the backlight, etc. And a phone really needs to be able to make it through most days without a recharge during the day. No way Intel plays with what is left over in that power budget anytime soon with a chip powerful enough to run Win8. They might manage the larger tablet form factors but phones are just not in the cards.

Re:This is Dell

[Xeranar]

Honest to god I hope somebody gouges your eye out for such an incredulous remark. "Ugly hunk of plastic!" First off the core chassis of the laptop is built on a metal frame so it doesn't warp or pop its chips. The crafted aluminum is still under patent & doesn't add that much in cost to the whole production. This is such a pointless argument. People who bought the new x86 OSX systems are buying equivalent PCs. You're welcome to pay more for perceived value but they do compare perfectly well. Don't try and claim because Apple dropped an extra 30 bucks on an aluminum shell they're uncomparable.

Re:This is Dell

[obeythefist]

This is true, I own a Streak 5, but Dell has been absolutely terrible at providing support and Android updates to the device. They also shipped it with a completely horrendous UI called "Stage". The build quality was "OK" but not great, too. Dell just didn't properly perform in the market segment.

I will be switching to a Samsung Galaxy Note very soon, and there's quite a buzz about that tablet, and most of it seems to be simply because Samsung knows how to do Android well.

Re:This is Dell

[obeythefist]

This isn't true... enthusiasts, both Apple and Android, will pay cash for a handset upgrade just because they want the latest and greatest.

People who don't care will just go on a plan with their cell provider, and upgrade either when the plan expires, or when the phone breaks or becomes so old as to be useless.

Re:This is Dell

[obeythefist]

Since Apple runs on x86/x64 hardware nowadays, it's very easy to build or buy a system which is just as reliable from off the shelf parts or from an OEM.

Both sets of hardware will run Windows or Linux, which is a good way to remove OS disparity from the equation (OSX cannot be the reason why Apple is better, that's a jokable and trollish fanboy premise).

So, thinking about two systems, x86/64, same internal components, same OS, but one is white and has fruit on the cover.

Why is one twice as good as the other, again? I'm a bit lost.

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, big numbers *do* matter. If you have to read why then please stay out of marketing...
 
Platforms that can publish big numbers can project a culture of wide acceptance. If it wasn't for this fact do you really think that Apple could charge as much as it does and maintain marketshare? Few people like iTunes. Apple hasn't had the digital music distribution channels cornered for years but still the top selling music player this year will be (hand down) the iPod. It's about the numbers, Apple has little else to go on at this point. This will also keep the iPhone a serious market player for a few more generations.
 
Slashtards don't understand these fundamentals of business and that's why nearly every market prediction that comes out of Slashdot can be widely ignored. After all, if you fucktards were right we'd be seeing at least 50% market share of Linux on the desktop today. We haven't even seen a tenth as much.

Re:This is Dell

[Old97]

Your home brew is not a product from Dell or HP is it? You built it yourself. Hardly a comparison. I was comparing Apple to other computer manufacturers. If your labor is free (to you) and you are crafty and able to get the parts at good prices you can do better especially when you start loading up the upgrades. You won't have support of course. You'll be assuming the risk that some parts won't play well with other, drivers etc. The labor, risk and lack of support are costs too though different people value them differently. Most people aren't computer nerds so they won't want to take the same path as you. Tell me, can you build a laptop with 6 hours of battery life and all the other specs including weight and form factor of a Macbook Air or do you think that a plastic box with a monitor attached is the same thing?

Re:This is Dell

[Daniel Phillips]

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.

Nice troll. So Dell jumping into Windows phone 7 indicates an acute sense of what consumers want rather than just the usual and well documented thuggery from Redmond?

Re:This is Dell

[RocketRabbit]

You're certainly welcome to try to gouge my eyes out, tough guy.

My point is that a higher quality laptop made with actual metal, with a better battery, is going to cost more money.

Re:This is Dell

[Niomosy]

The quality and parts in the build don't merit almost double the price. You're paying a high premium for the Apple brand. It happens on business all the time. Simply look to clothing for numerous examples of it. You're buying a designer computer and paying designer prices for it.

Re:This is Dell

[Vancorps]

You're absolutely right people have standards, and the scrolling issue is ridiculous at best. My personal phone is a Samsung Moment and my work phone is a Motorola Atrix, both run Android, and neither have scrolling issues. I'll admit the Moment can get sluggish at times, this is not unique to Android as I've seen the same thing on iPhones.

Parent was speaking how GPs claims were so ridiculous that they'd fit right in with the ID crowd. Given how trollish the comment was, I think this is fair.

Also note, OS X lion on a sufficiently old machine will perform like a dog, same with IOS 5 on iPhone 3GS. So again, statement is just inflammatory, if the hardware is insufficient for the software then it's understandable that there is lag.

Re:This is Dell

[rapidreload]

Parent was speaking how GPs claims were so ridiculous that they'd fit right in with the ID crowd. Given how trollish the comment was, I think this is fair.

Why is why I don't post that much on Internet forums (well, such that I don't take things seriously here). You can't get any serious discussion over such things - people are accusing everyone about being fanboys or trolls. Sometimes it's justified, while other times it's just a lashing out against anyone who has a different opinion which they don't want to hear and be exposed to. Honest discussion and discourse is impossible with emotional topics like politics and computing... and just about everything I guess.

Re:This is Dell

[RocketRabbit]

It's the combination of having a machine that's half as thick, has twice the battery, and has a real OS that you are paying for.

Re:This is Dell

[hitmark]

http://armdevices.net/2011/12/06/ice-cream-sandwich-preview-on-archos-g9/

looks plenty snappy to me.

Re:This is Dell

[hitmark]

I think there have been actual teardowns of the Apple products that looked at the various components and found the costs of them totaled up to the $200 region.

I think one possible issue is that a lot of the companies involved as phone manufacturers, not computer manufacturers. As such, they are used to (at least in USA) have the carriers act as intermediaries. The carriers absorb the upfront cost, and spread it out over the contract years.

Re:This is Dell

[emilper]

Samsung Galaxy GT-i5500 ... no UI lag

Re:This is Dell

[Daniel Phillips]

When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS.

Android kicks iOS around the block already. My Xoom is silky smooth. Sometimes I use an iPad and it drives me nuts. Browsing response is terrible compared to the Xoom on the same network, going to the same sites. The iOS UI is actually quite crappy when you strip away the fandom.

Re:This is Dell

[LOGINS SUC]

Remember the market placement disaster of the Edsel?

No. Nor do I remember Woodstock, hoop skirts, the Kennedy assassinations or the moon shot. The implication being I grew up with computers after punch cards but before mice and once foreign cars became common. Maybe the downfall of Detroit could be traced back to the malformed son of Ford?

Re:This is Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

My iPhone - When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS. If the OS is incapable of smooth scrolling, its a shitty OS, I don't care WHAT it is under the hood or who's fault it is.

Well, actually the only Android devices in this house hold that do not scroll smoothly are year old Archos cheapo tablets (well, they are sold as video players), and my cheapo $100 Samsung Droid Corby. Both my Dell Streak (mini5, with Streakdroid on it) and the Galaxy S2 (especially these, they smoothly scroll whatever you do with them, no matter if you have an animated 3D screen background it's still smooth). Actually the S2 is so cool that my daughter prefers it to the iPhone, actually their peer group at school prefers it over a lame iPhone. Trust neither my daughter nor her peer group is persuaded by technical, political or commercial arguments, so the S2 works better and is more user friendly than an iPhone. And can do quite a bit more of even cooler stuff.

And considering that I was able to share Internet connectivity (which at that time was critical for me, I've been traveling a log) between my laptop and my T-Mobile G1 inside of an hour or so, at a time that Apple not even offered that option (took them quite a bit time), the T-Mobile G1 was already (for me personally, I'm a hardware keyboard junkie I admit) superior to the iPhone back then.

And I'm sure you'll (or some other fanboy) name off some device that 'scrolls perfectly' and it won't, you'll just be oblivious to the fact that you've never seen it done right.

As said above, I've got very hard to argue with converts from iPhones in the family. My wife (sometimes) can be convinced by economic arguments, but my 11 years old is sadly used to getting what she wants, not really considering price. (It's not just us, she's the spending focus of well situated grand parents and aunts.)

My Mac Book - When purchased, Dell, HP, IBM, Sony did not offer a laptop with the same hardware for the same price, sorry to burst your bubble, but not everyone buys $250 el cheapo netbooks. And the only place I can get a good Unix desktop.

Good is a little simple. Something the Apple fan club tends to forget. An user interface that is helpful for newbies can be quite an hindrance to an expert user.
Personally I tend to switch between ion3 (with a gnome panel embedded for these annoying applets) and Gnome. But then, I'm doing that for a living, and I've got a slight preference against rodents.

(And before somebody points to the fact the Apple UI is perfect for all users, well picture yourself driving using that UI. So how good an UI is depends on the intended use and audience. Fact is that even newbies that are forced to use Windows [being old time Mac fetishists] tend to find Macs [with their "we know it better" attitude] to be slightly limiting. *g*)

My Mac Mini Server - Simply won't find anything with this power in this form factor and this OS, which fits my how perfectly.

Time Capsule/Airport Base Station - You can find stuff that does basically the same thing ... when it works ... and when you aren't having some sort of issue with their shitty software ... No, in fact there is nothing that compares to a Time Capsule.

Now I realize fully that I could spend far less cash and cobble together all of this shit on my own with a bunch of OSS software, but it wouldn't work nearly as well, and I'd have to maintain it ... worry about upgrades, reintegrating software, getting everything to play nicely together. I could spend hours a month just keeping up with updates ...

Or

I just buy something that doesn't suck ass and works well together.

Well, the problem is th

Re:This is Dell

[DaFallus]

Um, this part right here:

"And I'm sure you'll (or some other fanboy) name off some device that 'scrolls perfectly' and it won't, you'll just be oblivious to the fact that you've never seen it done right".

He clearly states that even if you present him with something that does scroll perfectly, it won't because it wasn't done "right", aka the Apple way, and anyone who disagrees is essentially an oblivious idiot. I had an iPhone 3G, a Nexus One, and now a Samsung Galaxy S II. The SGS2 scrolls just as "perfectly" as the 3G did as well as the iPhone 4's (haven't seen a 4S) that I've compared it to.

Re:This is Dell

[Andy Dodd]

The Galaxy Note is a Galaxy S II with a higher CPU clock, 720p screen, and the Wacom pen interface added.

Even if they completely fuck up the pen interface, the remainder of the Note is a refinement of one of Samsung's top sellers.

And yes - Samsung does know how to do Android well. The biggest flaws in my I777 are all problems that were inflicted by AT&T.

Re:This is Dell

[obeythefist]

Please carefully read my post before fanboy kneejerk. I mentioned quite clearly that you can buy an OEM system which is easily on par with the same components in an Apple PC built by the same manufacturers like Foxconn, just like the off the shelf parts are also made by the same group of manufacturers.

The only difference is the white plastic.

If you're not sure about what you're trying to say, go research fail rates and warranty return rates on Apple stuff compared to other major OEMs. It might teach you something.

And please, don't go comparing an apple laptop to a generic desktop PC as if that's some kind of valid comparison.

And don't go suggesting that because someone doesn't want to pay twice as much as they should for a white PC with an apple logo on it, they're a computer nerd. It just digs you deeper into the apple fanboy hole you live in.

Re:This is Dell

[Xeranar]

It was more an exaggeration of feeling. Lord knows if I were to actually gouge your eyes out it would have to be for something more deserving than a simple value judgment rationale. First off: Actual metal? Once again, the core of every laptop EVER made is of metal to avoid flex and destroying the motherboard. Second: Better battery life? I understand the Air has a tremendous battery life but the Macbook and Pro line are just about average for equivalent models and size.

The upgrades do cost money but for half the thickness all you need to do is build a single board instead of using daughter boards like most manufacturers do so they can offer customization. In other words: If you want choice you end up with thickness. Twice the battery life is really only in the Air which is $1000 minimum, so for that amount you could easily buy a $500 model and invest in a spare battery or even two that work just as well and extend your range. I doubt you're carrying around your laptop in a manilla sleeve so the extra size and weight of a battery should be minimal. As for a "real OS" I would believe that the OSX due to it's utter lack of support for most business, science, and academic apps is lacking. It's a minority subset of the whole, dwelling somewhere in the Linux-sized territory for elites who can afford to drop twice the amount on equivalent hardware. Critical mass or not, a software community cannot be supported by a rich minority if it ever wants to blossom into a dominant OS. Thus your argument at best is weak.

Re:This is Dell

[vlm]

Remember the market placement disaster of the Edsel?

No.

Cool, now history can repeat, at great profit to those who know and understand history. We love that in the "computer" business. Or any business.

The Edsel disaster was a very large and very public example of a world market leader trying to sell a midrange product too cheap to be a luxury good and too expensive to be a daily driver commuter for the masses. A pretty good tech analogy would be an Android Streak 7 tablet... Not cheap enough to be competitive against "kindle with spam" and not nearly good enough to be an ipad killer.

One line summary is that finding a gap in the market, does NOT mean automatic profit if you attempt to fill that gap, no matter how big of a "market leader" you are.

Dell in trouble

[ackthpt]

That's about all that needs be said.

They had a good run, but they are a commodity PC maker and that's about all.

Re:Dell in trouble

[sheehaje]

I'd give them more credit than just a commodity PC maker. They have made some significant acquisitions that run a lot of data centers. Equallogic is a fairly big player in mid-size data centers. They also picked up a fairly sizeable software distribution house in ASAP. Dell's problem has been getting away from what they were once superior at: Support. They still sell support, but don't seem to back it up like they used to, and a lot of people are starting to shy away from that.

Re:Dell in trouble

[jseale]

Yep. Sounds like they're next in line for a bailout from Uncle Sam. Fox News has to be loving this.

Re:Dell in trouble

[whereissue]

"Dell's problem has been getting away from what they were once superior at: Support."

What are you talking about? The awful factor of Dell's support is legendary.

Re:Dell in trouble

[burning-toast]

In my experience if you spend real money on computers through Dell (enough to actually have a sales person contact you, send you quotes, and setup a purchasing contract) your support would have been great and at least used to be to an American call center every timed you had to call in for support (24x7). This support was typically awesome and fast.

Their consumer support where you buy a pre-built boxed set or just a small handful of consumer class machines was almost always a call center in India (except for 8x5 or so) and was terrible in a legendary way.

Similar experience with HP, Compaq, and IBM really. Spend real money, get real support. Buy $400.00 desktop computer and if you run into problems... you get to use the forums and talk to "Jim" who has a thick Urdu accent, a weird 1/4 second pause in the phone call, and a penchant for getting you off the line as fast as possible.

Companies like Packard Bell had legendary bad support all of the time, and crap products too... so there is that too.

Unfortunately the bean counters and board of directors realized that it was a "cost center" and simply switched business support to the same service levels as the consumer support for all except their most valuable players.

So yes, Dell's business support at least used to be excellent (even the standard business support helpdesk was decent).

- Toast

Re:Dell in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean they're a PC distributor. Dell is on the way down to be sure. Our Dell tape library has been replaced twice (now on our third unit) in 2 years. Our Dell laptops are not long lasting though not treated harshly. When a new laptop hard drive refused to spin up and we called for warranty repair, do you know what they did? They sent a blank drive for me to install. I performed their labor for them. How would you like Chrysler to send you a alternator for you to replace your bad one? Half-ass warranty is a phrase that comes to mind. While I'm on the subject personally I'd pay 20% more for anything including a car if it came with a lifetime replacement warranty. Your original investment would never run out or go away unless YOU abandon it. Treat me well, do it consistently and you've got a customer for life. As for products that don't last i can say this. The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

It's high stakes poker

[caywen]

It's like a high stakes poker game with a full table. Eventually, players bust out because they bet too much on a losing hand. Dell just doesn't have quite the same mix of top-notch industrial design and capable hardware that the top players have. Neither did HP, and so the weak are weeded out. Windows 8 might convince them to buy back in, but really this is Apple, Samsung, and HTC's game.

Re:It's high stakes poker

[larry bagina]

Don't forget the Xoom. They sold 100,000 of them last quarter. Not too shabby. No wonder google paid 12.5 billion for Motorola.

Re:It's high stakes poker

[blibbler]

Are you kidding? Some are predicting the Kindle fire to sell 3.9 million this quarter http://recombu.com/news/amazons-kindle-fire-sales-second-place-to-ipad-set-to-vaporise-other-android-tab-sales_M15995.html, and others are predicting Apple to sell in the order of 13 million iPads http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-28/tech/30449262_1_ipads-piper-jaffray-apple-stores .100,000 Xooms is less than a rounding error. To put it in perspective, Windows mobile 7 has more of the phone market than any of the non-kindle android tablets have of the tablet market.

Re:It's high stakes poker

[Andy Dodd]

The Xoom was a market dud compared to the Transformer and Tab 10.1 - It was more expensive than the Tab 10.1 but didn't offer any of the features the Transformer or Tab 10.1 carried - it was heavier and thicker than the Tab, and it was MUCH more expensive than the TF even after purchasing the TF's dock.

Re:It's high stakes poker

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget that whereas the Xoom in the US was a "Google Experience" device, elsewhere it turns out that it wasn't. Plus the non-working SD card slot at launch, and I'm not surprised that sales weren't exactly inspiring. The only interesting thing about it was the built-in barometer (and I'm not sure what real use that has).

Re:It's high stakes poker

[Andy Dodd]

Most likely a lot of early adopters saw "Motorola" and assumed "locked bootloader", which meant "stay the fuck away".

I was completely shocked to find out the Xoom was supposed to be a "Google Experience" device along the lines of the Nexus line - I have to say I'm disappointed in Google for permitting a "Google Experience" device to have a locked bootloader.

Re:It's high stakes poker

[Anonymous Coward]

the bootloader was not locked and in an amazing turn of even Motorola even reversed their long held stance on boot loader locking?

atrix + cyanogen = loving it.

Huh?

[HideyoshiJP]

Windows Phone tablets? I thought it was just Windows tablets. Windows Phone isn't allowed to be on tablets at this point, if I'm not mistaken. Microsoft only wants Windows 7 and 8 on tablets in the grand scheme of things.

Zune Brown

[CMYKjunkie]

They should have sold it in Zune Brown and then you could have been the kewl kid on the block with a new Brown Streak!

Re:Zune Brown

[A12m0v]

Let's not forget built-in squirting.

Re:Zune Brown

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, cause brown is the color of poop, right?! That's so fucking witty and original!

Re:Zune Brown

[AHuxley]

The GP did not select the colour brown or the name Streak, that was the expensive work of some of the best and brightest designers in the USA.

my guess is

[Anonymous Coward]

they're getting compensation from microsoft for this.. and that dell will be back with windows-based tablets

Re:my guess is

[the linux geek]

The Streak7 is an awful device. It was laggy and had a painfully low-resolution display (800x480 on a 7".) Trying to continue selling the Streak 5 (woefully obsolete, strange form factor, never found a niche) and the Streak 7 (overall crappy device) at this point would be stupid. Microsoft doesn't have anything to do with it.

Re:my guess is

[Air-conditioned cowh]

Microsoft doesn't have anything to do with it.

Apart from being the inspiration for it!

Dude.. you're getting a Dell.

[Dynamoo]

..from the crud at the bottom of the bargain bucket.

Good riddance.

Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

How about that.

It was impossible to hold, slow as hell and cost the world. Nobody bought it.

Revenue model

[Dan East]

Well, this pretty much indicates that, at least when it comes to tablets, you cannot make money off of the hardware alone. iPad is still the exception, because it literally defined the market. However, Apple makes so much money off of the App store that they could undoubtedly sell the hardware at a loss and still profit overall. They just don't need to - at least not at this point.

Amazon's Kindle Fire is the only real competition, the reason being that Amazon is an established content provider, and just like Apple, they have their own closed App marketplace that they also profit off of. How can Dell, HP, Motorola, HTC compete in this scenario, when the only thing they can make money off of is the hardware? Their only chance is to partner with someone who does have the content distribution infrastructure, but it seems that chance has already passed.

Re:Revenue model

[Anonymous Coward]

On a site with incredible ignorance about business, this one is exceptionally ignorant. If you think that Apple is making a lot of more from the App Store, you've been listening to random IT fanboys instead of paying attention to the business facts. The App Store is hugely important to Apple's ecosystem, but there's very, very little profit in it, as compared to hardware profit. You're just plain wrong about this.

Re:Revenue model

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous parent is correct -- Apple makes some money off the App Store, but it really pales in comparison to the profits they are making off product sales.

Re:Revenue model

[tlhIngan]

Well, this pretty much indicates that, at least when it comes to tablets, you cannot make money off of the hardware alone. iPad is still the exception, because it literally defined the market. However, Apple makes so much money off of the App store that they could undoubtedly sell the hardware at a loss and still profit overall. They just don't need to - at least not at this point.

Amazon's Kindle Fire is the only real competition, the reason being that Amazon is an established content provider, and just like Apple, they have their own closed App marketplace that they also profit off of. How can Dell, HP, Motorola, HTC compete in this scenario, when the only thing they can make money off of is the hardware? Their only chance is to partner with someone who does have the content distribution infrastructure, but it seems that chance has already passed.

Apple's revenues from iTunes is far lower than the revenues from the hardware. Apple simply does not run iTunes for huge profits, and if it wasn't to sell hardware, would promptly abandon it.

I mean, 30% revenue means less than 30% profit margin after expenses (servers, hosting free content, iCloud, payment processing, etc). I think Apple only took around $1.5B profit from iTunes, and that includes apps, music, books and movies.

I believe the device (iPod, iOS) profit was 20 times that in the same period. Even Mac profit was an order of magnitude higher. than that. It's all in the Apple revenue filings. iTunes just doesn't make more than pocket change for Apple. There's not much of a loss Apple can take on hardware to be made up through iTunes.

Amazon's selling hardware to sell content. Apple's selling content in order to sell hardware (has been true since 2003 when the iTunes Music Store opened). The two can't have more opposite business models. (And Google's offering stuff for free to sell ads). You can see it in the device breakdowns - Apple's hardware really only costs $300 or less to make, while Amazon's basically selling at cost.

And HTC, Samsung, LG, etc seem to be doing fine selling hardware, as does Apple.

The only thing Apple and Amazon have in common is they sell "the whole experience" - devices with the ability to get content easily. Why they offer content may vary, but they know if they make it convenient, people will buy (it's how iTunes became the dominant force in music sales) and gives a lot of legitimacy to the stuff. (People back then accused Apple of enabling music piracy - Apple proved the music industry was Doing It Wrong(tm)).

The other content with hardware guys in the game are Barnes and Noble and Kobo. I don't think the Nook Color is sold at a loss given how B&N seems to let that tablet be hacked trivially.

And nevermind the "success" of such greats like RIM (Blackberry App World), HP (remember WebOS? They had an app store?) who also mixed the hardware-with-content offerings.

tl;dr - Apple doesn't make much money off iTunes - see their last earnings report and hardware sales consistently outdo iTunes sales by wide margins.

Re:Revenue model

[Tharsman]

However, Apple makes so much money off of the App store that they could undoubtedly sell the hardware at a loss and still profit overall. They just don't need to - at least not at this point.

According to the Q3 earning reports, iTunes generates 5% of the profits, with the iPad hardware sales generating 21% . iTunes pfofits are about half music so lets be generous and say 2.5% of the company profits are app sales. Given 47% of the sales being iPhones, and asuming equal ratios, that means about 1.117% of the company profits are due to iPad app sales.

Selling the iPad at a loss would cut an insane amount of profit and generate nearly no extra income, not to mention that a lower price point encourages people with singier pockets to buy it, meaning the app sale percentage will likely go further down.

So apple does need to sell the iPad at a profit.

How can Dell, HP, Motorola, HTC compete in this scenario, when the only thing they can make money off of is the hardware?

Those companies may get a chance once Windows 8 comes out. If managed properly, it may fare much better than the phone offerings. Microsoft will have office for Windows 8 Metro. That alone will surely encourage many consumers that shy from tablets due to productivity concerns, a market Android Tablets does not cover.

Re:Revenue model

[0123456]

Microsoft will have office for Windows 8 Metro. That alone will surely encourage many consumers that shy from tablets due to productivity concerns, a market Android Tablets does not cover.

I'm sure people will just be lining up to run a word processor on a tablet with no keyboard.

Re:Revenue model

[hitmark]

USB and Bluetooth covers that. Hell, seems one of the most used keyboards on android tablets right now is the Apple Bluetooth keyboard because it is slim and easy to pack.

And yes, one may wonder why people bother as then they are basically using a laptop...

Re:Revenue model

[arkane1234]

If you're going to have a rebuttal, citations are going to be needed. It basically sounded like you said "nuh uh!".

Re:Revenue model

[arkane1234]

I do it with my iPad alot... you won't type a novel of course, but it's quite simple if your not a hunt-and-peck kind of person.
If you want, you can bluetooth a keyboard to it real easy, as well.

Re:Revenue model

[Tharsman]

Usually you keep the keyboard at the desk and dont take it with you when you "go mobile".

I am fond of cases that have built in keyboards, though. "Why bother?" I have an iPad for gaming mostly. Cant get Touch based Unreal Engine games like Infinity Blade anywhere else. And I also like to sometimes just type. The bluetooth case allows me to flip the keyboard away very easily, sometimes just remove the thing from the case entirely, while also giving me typing flexibility.

Re:Revenue model

[Anonymous Coward]

The app store is a break even/very small profit part of apple's business. It's in every earnings report.

Re:Revenue model

[SadButTrue]

Apple doesn't make much off of iTunes compared to the rest of their income, but 1.25B/Qtr is a friking BIG company.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/19/apple-reports-record-breaking-q3-2011/

Re:Revenue model

[Vitriol Angst]

from my own experience I'd have to concur.

I bought an iTouch and got an iPad (included as severance from my company). The latest device has bout 32 Gigs and that is almost entirely Apps. Most of these apps have been free, and a handful cost less than $5.

Having had iPods, iTouch and now iPad for about as long as they've been available, I think in total I probably spent less than $150 since the iTunes store has been ready for business. I get most of my music from "can't pass up" deals at Amazon.

Apple would go out of business if it depended on the iTunes store; it's obviously a loss-leader.

>> The iHaters saying I've been ripped off and I'm a clueless snob chasing expensive and trendy baubles do not consider that I never have had a car lease. I've finally paid off my home, and I haven't purchased a shiny Bauble since I married my wife. I only pay for VALUE.

Re:Revenue model

[rtfa-troll]

This is not Wikipedia and you can Google before you ask for it. Whilst you or I wouldn't cry if Apple's app store profit was all we made next year, it's not exactly a major deal for Apple.

Re:Revenue model

[sootman]

Here it is in handy picture form. Anyone who thinks Apple sells devices cheap to make it up on software and content is grossly misinformed.

Re:Revenue model

[sootman]

Here, in handy picture form.

Re:Revenue model

[bberens]

There's wafer-thin "cases" for your tablet that include keyboards. Everyone I see using them for business purposes pretty much has one of those. It not only provides a decent level of protection for the device, but simultaneously provides a real keyboard. I still wouldn't write a novel on a 10" screen, but you could certainly do a fair amount of typing on one without issue.

Re:Revenue model

[maglor_83]

That chart shows revenue, not profit.

There are no WP tablets

[Eirenarch]

There is no such thing as a Windows Phone tablet. There will be Windows 8 tablets.

Not worth it!

[na1led]

7" Android tablets are not worth more than $100. It's not going to replace your laptop or netbook. It's too small for word processing or doing any serious work, all it's good for is watch videos and playing a few games. When will these companies realize this?

Re:Not worth it!

[bberens]

I would add a caveat of "for now." Within a few years I think our cell phones or that sized devices will be our computers.. we'll carry them around with us and then plug them into docking station type things so we have a big screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. They're already about to release quad-core 1Ghz processors on the next-gen phones, the graphics capability is already HD though support is kinda bleh.. Give them a few more generations/years of development and the processing power of your phone will make a decent workstation.

Odd...

[Stumbles]

While Samsung and a whole bunch of other companies have Android devices flying off the shelves, Dell seems unable to do the same. Curious and curiouser.

Re:Odd...

[Desler]

Losing 8% marketshare in a single.fiscal quarter == flying off the shelves? LOL @ fandroid spin.

Re:Odd...

[Tharsman]

While Samsung and a whole bunch of other companies have Android devices flying off the shelves, Dell seems unable to do the same. Curious and curiouser.

This a joke? According to the NPD, Samsung has only sold 192,000 tablets in the US (16% of a 1.2 million non apple tablet market.) For such a large country, buying so many ipads, I would say 192,000 is not exactly flying off the shelf.

Mind you, got to give it to Samsung that they at lest manage to sell that amount. Dell didnt even sell enough to show up in the top 5 list (http://www.npdgroup.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/pressreleases/pr_111122b.) IF Dell happens to be 6th at 8% that would mean they sold 96,000 tablets tops.

Re:Odd...

[hitmark]

The streak7 is a older design. Not even sure it has Market access, as i think Samsung did a fair bit of arm twisting to get that into the Galaxy Tab.

Re:Odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, both the Streaks had Market access out-of-the box.

Nice machines, my Streak 5 still shows-up hardware a year younger.

Firesale/Tablet fatigue

[gpmanrpi]

So, will Dell do a fire-sale on existing inventory, or just reload the Windows tablet software and rebrand/remarket the same hardware? The tablet price points are starting to make sense for me. But, I would love to have a device I can play around with for convergence development. Is there something along these lines available? I think there is definitely a market for Phone(SIP, Cellular, PSTN), IM, E-mail, NAS, & remote desktop. I feel like we are doing a lot of incremental things, but ultimately we have these powerful portable devices that can really do a lot. Yet they don't. They run angry birds, and don't actually save you any time or work around your life. Shouldn't a phone/table be smart enough to to run your home phone system while you are home, maybe GPS based follow-me. Shouldn't a phone that knows you have a meeting scheduled or class and sends your calls to voice-mail with the option to SMS or IM. Hell a tablet with a wireless headset that runs as a phone, or with a phone. We are wasting a resource that could do useful work too. I mean think of the distributed computing you can do with these tablets, smart phones, etc. There are problems to be solved, and none of these "solutions" actually solves them.

Re:Android = trash

[Stumbles]

You got that backwards; Dell is shit and all the other companies having Android devices flying off the shelves confirms it.

I would call this a complete marketing failure...

[Mysticalfruit]

The Dell what? Dell's selling a tablet? Honestly Dells marketing department totally dropped the ball on this one. I've been looking around for cheaper android tablets and this NEVER made my radar screen.

Nope

[Hotweed Music]

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/5/2612610/dell-were-not-backing-away-from-android

Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[Anonymous Coward]

Tablet makers still don't get it. Price is king. I want a 7 inch tablet with hdmi out, a camera, wifi, gps, gyroscope, accelerometer, & magnetometer for less than $100. If they can put in a slide out(or back of screen...) keyboard and a front facing camera, those are worth an additional $50 to me.

I have all of the above minus the hdmi out on my Droid 2 Global. I'm not going to sacrifice features for a larger screen. With the MPU-6000, they have no excuse to be selling "g-sensors" as if a tilt compensated compass is still cutting edge.

Aluminum is less than $3 a pound. A brushed aluminum(or composite) case is worth another $20 to me.

They are still pricing these fucking things as if they already had control of the market. They need to start thinking like new players in the console market and sell these at a near loss. They can worry about profit when they have successfully achieved front runner status.

Their PC "brand name" doesn't mean shit here, it's a new arena. They need to buy front runner status by breaking even and then when their name is synonymous with "best android tablet" they can start pricing them like they are fashionable.

Nobody wants to buy a status symbol like a tablet computer until a clear front runner has established itself. I'm not going to pay Apple pricing for "2nd place" aka the loser tablet, aka the tablet no one else wants. It is EMBARASSING to be seen with as it hurts my credibility as a tech snob to be seen with a product which demonstrates that I couldn't pick a winner out of a line up.

Until they have bought 1st place status, their product is a commodity and sales will be lack-luster on any metric other than "cheap as dirt" for "incredible value". They need to start thinking about accessories as profit centers and lower the bar like a crack dealer. "First time is free man..."

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[nomadic]

So basically what you're asking for is a present from tablet makers. Why would they go into debt to give you a gift?

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[Anonymous Coward]

Because otherwise they're going to have inventory sit on shelves until it gets sold in a fire sale, like HP did. There are some unrealistic motherfuckers in the tablet business right now, and Dell was up there with the worst of them.

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[Pope]

Quick google search shows me that the Droid 2 Global is a phone that sells for $580, not a tablet by any means. And where does your magical $100 price tag come from?

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention unrealistic slashdot posters.

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I read it, he's saying that as also-rans in a race dominated by the iPad, the newer tablet makers can't command the price premiums Apple achieves (or even the premiums they themselves extract in other markets) and should not expect to do so. Many of the tablets seem to cost more than a netbook but have basically similar (or cheaper) guts - that does suggest that manufacturers are hoping they'll sell based on fashion.

The comparison to consoles is possibly somewhat apt - if Sony and Microsoft had tried to enter the markets with a high-margin price on their consoles they would have had trouble making any impact on existing heavy-hitters like Nintendo. But as I understand it, they have typically taken a loss on their hardware and made it back on game licensing. If any of them ever manages to eliminate all competition I imagine they'll go back up to a high-margin price again as the customers will have little other choice.

I don't know how the economics of the situation actually work out but I do find the current prices charged for most tablets a bit of a high ask. Apple can afford a mark-up just for being slick and cool; it's been interesting to see that most of the credible Android tablets have not competed that aggressively on price. Maybe the market just isn't ready for them, or for that amount of competition or something. It seems an odd situation.

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[Anonymous Coward]

I want a 7" tablet where the components for hdmi out, any camera, gps, gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer... basically anything "extra" other than wifi/data connection have been removed to make way for a larger battery enabling >=24 hours of continuous use. I would pay over 150 dollars if the screen was nice and it charged over USB.
Isn't it fun to dream?

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[nomadic]

Which is fair enough, but he went beyond that, demanding a tablet that has "camera, wifi, gps, gyroscope, accelerometer, & magnetometer" for under $100. That is extremely unreasonable.

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[wesgray]

"I don't know how the economics of the situation actually work" The only phrase in your post that makes any sense.

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[bberens]

There's some "chinese knockoffs" available here that meet pretty close to the specs and price point the OP was looking for. http://www.mcbub.com/category/cheap-Android-Tablet-pc-1146/?displaySize=2 They're capacitive touch though.. but the newer capacitive touch tech is nothing like the nightmares we remember.

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

http://www.chinavasion.com/large-capacity-pmps/cvakpc11/

http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/LSM303DLHCTR/497-11918-2-ND/2757637
http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/LY3200ALHTR/497-11080-2-ND/2214507

I as an end-consumer could make one for $140 using a Pic24f and the IOIO library. You're telling me that Acer/Asus/Dell/MSI/Sony/Samsung/Motorola/etc. can't deliver the same? I even qualified that price with a feature(keyboard) that is worth money to me but is cheap to produce.

You only believe it's unreasonable because you are so used to paying profit-margins vs. commodity pricing. I buy almost everything from china so I expect the latter.

Re:Make money on the accessories, not the sticker

[nomadic]

"as an end-consumer could make one for $140 using a Pic24f and the IOIO library"

Now try to come in under your remaining $10 to pay for design of the casing and packaging, the transportation costs to move it from the site where it was finished to the wholesaler, the technical support personnel and RMA system for defective units (and believe me, with the places you're going for your parts, there are going to be a lot of defective units, Acer/ASUS/etc. use better-quality parts than you linked to), overhead for the facility where you put it together, and the paperwork needed to move the product across borders.

Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google won't pay us, Microsoft will..."

suffers from the Not an iPad problem

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same story: people want The Real Thing, and that is an iPad. They don't want a knockoff, so the Android tablet market (all of it put together!) is a small fraction of the iPad market. It can only get people who can't afford the real thing, that supports the App Store.

Apple created the tablet market, and as such, they're going to be hard to compete with. You can't sell anywhere NEAR their price point, because why would anyone buy a knockoff for about the same price when you could just buy an iPad?

Re:suffers from the Not an iPad problem

[arkane1234]

EXACTLY!

As an iPad fan (not fanboy, a fan), I love what they did with the iPad. However, competition is a wonderful thing. Android should create their own niche, and grab more of the market that way. Then, Apple would be forced to change. As it is right now, there's little competition, only fanfare on both sides.

Will Windows 8 Tablet PC Edition matter?

[tepples]

Will there still be room in the market for Windows 8 tablets by the time Windows 8 comes out, or will substantially all applications that one would want to run on an ARM-powered tablet already have been ported to Android?

Re:Will Windows 8 Tablet PC Edition matter?

[Niomosy]

It has potential. I'd rather have a Windows 8 tablet that offers more flexibility in function and software than an Android tablet. I find with an Android tab that I'm planning my use around the tablet's limitations rather than simply treating it like another computing device.

For other users, having access to all the software you're familiar with has merit. Having a Windows tab means you could potentially have your notebook and tablet in one device, particularly for those that have very simple needs.

Re:Will Windows 8 Tablet PC Edition matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the better question will be, between Windows 8 and IOS can Android actually survive in the marketplace. Win 8 will have a huge instant ecosystem as well as access to all the current corporate software and developers and Apple isn't going anywhere fast. Android is sort of stuck in no mans land, it is racing to make itself relevant in the tablet market but so far has fallen at every hurdle.

Re:Will Windows 8 Tablet PC Edition matter?

[tepples]

For other users, having access to all the software you're familiar with has merit.

Let me guess: you're assuming x86-architecture Windows 8 tablets, not ARM-architecture Windows 8 tablets.

Re:Android = trash

[Desler]

So that's why Android tablets lost 8% marketshare last fiscal quarter?

Re:Android = trash

[Cyberax]

Like Samsung (Galaxy Tab). Or Acer.

Re:Android = trash

[0123456]

So that's why Android tablets lost 8% marketshare last fiscal quarter?

I suspect it's as much because only Apple fanboys still think they really 'must have' a tablet while the rest of the world doesn't see much use for them. I played with a Transformer at a trade show a few months ago and it was kind of cool but I couldn't see myself doing anything with it that I don't really do with my netbook.

I read an interesting survey a few weeks back showing some huge percentage of iPad buyers bought it on hype and barely use the thing a few months later; I forget what site it was on.

Microsoft's Poodle

[strangeattraction]

Michael Dell is Microsoft's Poodle. When daddy tightens the leash non-microsoft products got to go.

Re:Android = trash

[Stumbles]

Lol that's some Kool Aid your offering. Its been estimated there are 350,000 Android devices being activated each day. While that number seems high to me, it wouldn't surprise me if its mostly on the mark; http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/03/07/in-the-us-android-is-now-the-number-one-smartphone-os/ .

No Windows Phone tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not pushing Windows Phone tablets because there is no such thing. They have a Windows 7 tablet. Windows 7 != Windows Phone 7

Re:Android = trash

[Dog-Cow]

There are fewer netbooks in existence than there are tablets sold. That you happen to have a netbook doesn't mean anything for the 99.99999999999 of the population that doesn't.

Mass Market

[fermion]

The problem with android tablets is how to get the volume to make a profit. The iPad sets the high price of a table due to the fact that the industry has spent years positioning apple as the premium retailers with markup of 50-500%. it is therefore expected that anyone else should be able to make a tablet for at least 25% less, if not 80% less as in the case of computer. We are always told that dell can make a better computer than apple for half as much.

So the fact most tablets are on the order of magnitude of a basic iPad, around the $400 mark, makes people think that tablets are too expensive. Of course Google is not providing the support that MS does, so the manufacturers have to shoulder all costs, which of course results in a more expensive product.

I think the strategy that will work is the Amazon strategy. Use the Android base, customize it into t a differentiated unique product, attach it to a service. The Android fanbois won't like it, but they aren't going to provide a mass market anyway. They were the one's cheering when HP had to sell it's table at a rock bottom price. Selling low does not move an industry forward. Selling good products at affordable prices does. This is why people buy Xbox, iPhone, and Deskjets. Not because they are cheap, but because they are good.

Re:Mass Market

[hitmark]

I wonder how much Apple gets away with by using the same internals for pad, pod and phone. Got to be some very nice bulk deals there. The others seems to have been stuck with Tegra because of some Google choice rather then being allowed to pick their own poison. Archos seems to be the first company to not use Tegra on a honeycomb tablet, and they are late to the game (but seems willing to update to ICS on existing products rather then try to sell yet another design as seen with ASUS and their transformer prime).

Stupid name

[DigitalOZ]

I knew this would happen since any product with a name as stupid as "Streak" will fail. Can you imagine telling your friends you own a Streak with a straight face? Try it, I bet you can't do it.

Re:Android = trash

[0123456]

There are fewer netbooks in existence than there are tablets sold. That you happen to have a netbook doesn't mean anything for the 99.99999999999 of the population that doesn't.

A netbook is half the price of a Transformer and probably faster too. So if you're thinking of buying one you could just buy the netbook and save a few hundred bucks.

I'm not even being facetious when i say...

[shadowrat]

Whoa! What? Dell had an Android tablet for sale?

How the tune has changed

[MobyDisk]

When the iPad came out all I heard was how overpriced it was. How you could get a netbook that does 10 times as much for less money. Now I see company after company failing to produce a comparable product at the same price, and a bzillion Slashdot posts about how no one can compete with Apple because they sell the iPad at a loss and make money back from the app store.

Re:How the tune has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

and a bzillion Slashdot posts about how no one can compete with Apple because they sell the iPad at a loss and make money back from the app store.

Which isn't even true. Weird.

Re:How the tune has changed

[arkane1234]

No one said Apple is selling the iPad at a loss.

Re:How the tune has changed

[BitZtream]

Scroll up, plenty of idiots are claiming that.

Re:Android = trash

[Lokitoth]

There are a lot of Android devices being activated, and OP was being stupid by conflating Android phones and Android tablets, but let's not be disingenuous in the opposite direction: Android tablets have not exactly set the world on fire yet. Android on tablets needs a bit more time to mature, and for efficient supply-chains to be built by the various manufacturers.

Close it down?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I hope Michael Dell take his own advice..

What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders"

Re:Close it down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh.. takes his own advice. More than one person can take their time, one person takes their time. Plural and singular are difficult concepts to master. Ever see "Come and be bless" on a sign? It should always read " Come and be blessed". Some must confuse blessed (receiving a blessing) with the identically spelled word blessed (pronounced bless-ed) as in "be thy name". There's also three ways to spell "to". I went to the store. They are too loud. I counted two hubcaps in the ditch. Oh and "prolly" is not "probably". I hope this helps bloggers out there to improve. If you knew better, you'd do better. Live life to it's fullest, leave clean underwear, and please try to spell correctly.

Wow, I read that title wrong the first time...

[crowtc]

I read the title as "Dell Streak Kills 7, Bails On Android Tablets" - and here I was expecting to read about some kind of story about a Lithium battery explosion.

Re:Wow, I read that title wrong the first time...

[Anonymous Coward]

i did too. it's better that way =)

Re:Wow, I read that title wrong the first time...

[Ossifer]

(ditto)

"Film at 11."

Re:Wow, I read that title wrong the first time...

[Ed_1024]

Same with me - I tend to read whole blocks of text at once then get a meaning from them and I parsed the title exactly as you describe. Maybe I was expecting something like that to happen sometime and my brain just thought "yeah, that seems right."

Way back when

[ISoldat53]

Dell had the best tech support. It was what differentiated Dell from the rest. Then Dell hired a management consulting firm to come in and see if there was a way they could improve the business. The consultant's advice was to be more like Gateway Computers and cut back on support. The result went straight to the bottom line and the stock price shot up and management and everybody made fortunes. Anybody with a clue saw what was happening and sold out. The stock price has never recovered and you know what Dell's reputation is like.

Re:Android = trash

[arkane1234]

If it was about saving money, it'd be better just NOT to buy them.
It's about quality of product, not about saving a few bucks here and there.

This is why

[fafaforza]

This is why people aren't as willing to buy from companies like Dell as opposed to Apple. A few quarters of less than stellar sales and they bail on the whole market and you're left with an unsupported device. Happened with the Zune, HP's tablet, some very good mp3 players of yore. And to add insult to injury, these companies expect to be able to charge the same for their devices as Apple does.

Gee whiz, I wonder why people choose an iPad where for exactly the same money they could have had an Android wanna-be from a company not completely behind their own product.

Re:This is why

[NickFortune]

Gee whiz, I wonder why people choose an iPad where for exactly the same money they could have had an Android wanna-be from a company not completely behind their own product.

Of course, a couple of years or so ago and some people were using that exact same line of argument to show how the iPhone was always going to dominate the market, and how Android would never be more than a curiosity.

And we all know how that turned out :)

Re:This is why

[fafaforza]

But many Android phones are a lot cheaper than the iPhone. With the tablets, they priced them the same as the iPad, removing the last remaining reason for getting a non-Apple tablet. But with the advent of $200 7" tablets like B&N Tablet, that might change. B&N and Amazon might stay behind their product for a longer while.

Re:This is why

[NickFortune]

Exactly. The first tablet with a decent hardware spec and a substantially lower price is going to be a game changer.

I don't know if the B&N or Amazon offerings are going to be the ones to do that (don't know much about them, really) but the fact that the vendor doesn't need to licence the O/S means that there almost certainly is going to be one.

It's just not going to have "Dell" written on it.

Re:This is why

[fafaforza]

Probably not the Amazon one (Fire). No SD card slots, 6GB of usable disk space. The B&N Tablet has twice the space and card slots, and isn't heavily modified to only access their media store.

But yeah, remains to be seen whether a 7" screen and a 1GHz CPU are enough for most people. I'm honestly surprised that most tablet makers thought they could charge the same money as Apple. Then when they dumped their remaining stock for $99 and it was all snapped up, they actually thought they could get back into it. Honestly? *facepalm*

Maybe they're buying webOS???

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bails on Android Tablets" gives me slight hope that another big name might be bailing out the webOS faithfuls and reaching out to buy their own OS. Although, after seeing how well that panned out for HP, I can't imagine they'd want to follow suit. Wishful thinking though.

Re:Android = trash

[arkane1234]

Pretty much... I see nearly everyone (non-geeky) who has an android has one because it was either free or a very low price during their Verizon contract renewal.

Re:Android = trash

[arkane1234]

So... what your saying is last quarter 8% of the market was a sudden influx of "Apple fanboys"...
(I particularly hate that blanket term, because your either an Apple fanboy or a consumer of android by that term, apparently...)

I've used android tablets, and operating system aside the quality SUCKED. Dare I say it again, the quality on every Android-based tablet SUCKED. It's the quality of the case, screen, internals, etc. It saddens me that I'm in a world where Apple dominates a market because everyone else is just shitty. The hilarious part is, the retort will probably be that I'm an Apple fanboy lol

Why...

[sootman]

... does Dell feel the need to make so much stuff? Nobody ever bought their crap MP3 players, I've never seen a Dell phone anywhere,* and now here they are, killing two tablets that were barely a year old. Are there companies who will buy from no one but Dell, and Dell feels that the more stuff they make, the more sales they'll get from these few customers? If that's what they think, it's obviously not working out. A lot of their products have lifespans measurable in months.

* I admit it's possible I've seen one and not known it.

Re:I would call this a complete marketing failure.

[pak9rabid]

Maybe if you didn't have AdBlock+ running, you would have seen an ad for it :p

Re:Android = trash

[SadButTrue]

If you think 350k/day is high imagine what you will think of the current number... 550k/day!

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/14/android-now-seeing-550000-activations-per-day/

Re:Android = trash

[jedidiah]

You make it sound like Android devices are the only ones that are heavily subsidized by carriers.

That's not the case of course.

Show of hands?

[_KiTA_]

Who all saw this coming? Dell has to constantly try and play catchup with everyone else in the industry, it's pathological at this point. They ruined their reputation for having reliable workstations, they ruined their Gold Tech Support when they started outsourcing it to themselves (the new "Pro Support doesn't state the guy on the other end has to be certified A+ or MCP, just 'English Speaking'"), etc etc. What else do they have at this point but to try to hop on the next big thing and pray they can accidentally do it better than everyone else?

They need an Executive Enema. Get rid of these guys in suits desperate to have their name on the "next big thing(tm)" and maybe the ones that are left will be able to actually get some work done.

Re:Show of hands?

[BitZtream]

Wow, its 2011 and you still haven't figured out how utterly meaning less A+ and MCP are yet?

Re:Show of hands?

[_KiTA_]

Better an A+ and MCP tech making a living wage of $12 an hour (+benefits) than Dell outsourcing the same jobs to a shell company they own and hiring people off the street for minimum wage (no benefits, no job security, etc).

Dell teamed with the last place . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

national cell company with an also-ran product that is hard to distinguish from a dozen other Android tablets on the market. Why is anyone surprised this didn't work? Apple and AT&T were able to get away with it because both were big, they were building on the iPod franchise, and no other cell phone was like the iPhone.

Re:Android = trash

[sarhjinian]

350,000 Android devices being activated each day

Those are mostly phones, not tablets. I actually quite like most Android phones, but the tablet experience has not been a good one (I'm on my second, now, a Xoom, after the failure that was the Optimus Pad). Android fans need to be honest with themselves: the product was rushed out the door by Google, and made worse by OEM incompetence/indifference/opportunism.

I am hoping ICS helps out, but I was not at all impressed with Honeycomb, to the point where I thought the PlayBook was a better experience for casual use.

Re:Android = trash

[sarhjinian]

I wasn't "being stupid". This is a discussion about the Steak 7, which is a tablet. The post I replied to was about the Xoom, which is a tablet. I referenced the Transfomer and the PlayBook, which are tablets.

There's no conflation of the two going on.

And yes, you're right to note that, while Android works very well on phones, it's been, well, let's be honest, a commercial failure on tablets, with even the best-of-breed examples competing on price and selling only when they hit fire-sale pricetag levels, and that the reason isn't due to marketing or consumer stupidity, but because the product really hasn't been very competitive, and that's the fault of Google and the OEMs.

And no, that's not the case with Android phones because the OEMs seem to try harder and Google's offering doesn't have that "premature" feeling.

Re:Android = trash

[sarhjinian]

Android tablets are being subsidized by carriers. The iPad is not.

Windows Phone tablets branding breakdown

[thegoldenear]

They should be hoping so, as Windows Phone tablets is a total branding breakdown that's just out the door for a brand name that's a refresh of a brand name that's a refresh of a brand name.

Re:Windows Phone tablets branding breakdown

[HideyoshiJP]

Like Street Fighter: The Movie (the game)?

Re:Android = trash

[toriver]

Yeah, because a netbook is so great for reading magazines in portrait mode on.

Nah. NO SALE.

Re:Android = trash

[Lokitoth]

Fair enough. I did not quite get that you were speaking about tablet Android specifically, though in retrospect I should have. The main thrust of my argument was about the silliness in taking the overall Android "activations" and taking that to mean that Android tablets are doing well in the market.

Re:Packard Bell had legendary bad support

[DocSavage64109]

I don't know about that. I remember accidentally changing the hd settings in the bios (200MB in a 25MHz 486) and the packard bell phone tech actually walked me through fixing it. He didn't even need to transfer me.

are we ever going to see

[Anonymous Coward]

barebones tablets where we can install whatever we want? gnome3 seems like a nice candidate for tablets.

maybe its too resource hungry for ARM right now ... i dont know.

approved US govt provider

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a US government software / hardware provider. That means WINTEL all up in it.

Summary wording misleading

[markdavis]

Dell doesn't know what they are doing, aren't making the KINDS of Android devices that people want, and not at the prices people want.

Sorry, but that doesn't make "failure of the Android device to catch on with consumers" an accurate statement. The correct statement is "Dell fails at figuring out how to make compelling Android devices that people want". Big difference.

I paid full price!

[Xeranar]

Unless you NEED an unlocked phone paying full price is silly. By the way there are plenty of people who buy android phones off contract. This is a marketing/sociology issue where part of the aura of apple is price. It's a luxury item & draws a certain crowd. I'm not against them, they're perfectly fine people. But I see no reason to be proud you paid more or your item has bigger profit margins. I would rather buy what I want & live my life.

Re:I paid full price!

[RocketRabbit]

It's a luxury item in the sense that it costs a bit more, but you are paying for form and function, not just cache.

Re:I paid full price!

[Xeranar]

The only "function" you're paying for is iOS. For most everyday use the average user would be hard pressed to differentiate Android from iOS and most of the most popular apps are supported on both. As for "form" there are plenty of smartphones that have a similar shape and heft to an iPhone. Not as many 3.5 inch screens out there and while their "retina display" does have a rather large DPI it's a small advantage in everyday viewing. In essence the price hike is to buy into their ecosystem which is your biggest advantage. Of course if you're on android you can go into Mac's ecosystem somewhat or if you're a Windows user (about 80% of the world) you can use android in conjunction with that or Linux (about 9%). So in other words Android covers 89% of the entire PC world with it's function, Apple 11%.

Part of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first time i heard about the device, maybe they messed up marketing?^^

No Rosetta on Windows 8

[tepples]

Win 8 will have a huge instant ecosystem

True, Windows 8 for x86 will, but I predict Windows 8 for ARM will have as much "instant ecosystem" as Windows Phone 7 had at launch for the following reason:

as well as access to all the current corporate software and developers

Only for those developers who choose to port their applications to Windows 8 for ARM. Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 had Rosetta, a dynamic-recompiling emulator to run PowerPC applications on Intel Macs. But Microsoft has no plan to introduce a counterpart to Rosetta to run off-the-shelf applications designed for Windows for x86 on Windows 8 for ARM. If they decline, Windows 8 for ARM won't have as much software.

I still think it's overpriced

[Chirs]

I got a touchpad on firesale because I wasn't willing to spend the current going rate on a tablet. I still think an iPad is overpriced for what you get. The fact that others haven't been able to do it for less doesn't change my perception.

If the touchpad hadn't gone on sale, I probably still wouldn't have a tablet.

Re: Kindle Fire vs. Apple iPad II

[Anonymous Coward]

I went along with a friend who wanted to try a Kindle Fire to perhaps buy one. I brought my iPad II along for a side-by-side comparison. As I scrolled up and down on both at the same time, the iPad smoothly accomplished this mundane task but the Kindle jumped and jerked and appeared to struggle where the iPad didn't. Next I loaded the same webpage on both at the same time. The Kindle Fire filled the screen slowly and in rectangular blocks while the iPad loaded it almost instantly. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone buy the Kindle?" They might think its pretty good without any experience with a iPad and having no side-by-side demo which illustrated the Kindle's shortcomings in spades. The salesman didn't like my bringing the iPad along, you should have seen the look on his face. My friend said, "Let's go to the Apple store because I know what I want now." That salesman snatched the Kindle off the counter and thanked us for wasting his time. My friend in return thanked him (sarcastically) for almost wasting her money.