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Amazon Reportedly Aiming For the Low End With a Loss-Leader $50 Tablet
Amazon has been dogged with criticism for its high-end, somewhat oddball phone, but done rather better with its high-end Fire tablets, and has mostly defined the market for e-ink book-reading devices with its long-lived Kindle series. Now, according to a report in the WSJ echoed by Fortune (and by Ars Technica and many others), the company is said to be working on a tablet aimed at the low end of the market, with a 6-inch screen, a mono speaker, and a tiny pricetag -- which could be as low as $50. "At the bottom end of the range at least, the devices won’t be priced to make a profit," writes Fortune. "The dirt-cheap price tag is intended to maximise the reach of its e-book and Amazon Prime video streaming content."
They definitely are interested in low cost loss leader salesmanship.
>> a mono speaker
I just read that and thought, "tablets have stereo speakers"? Isn't that what headphones are for? Would having stereo speakers really make a difference on a 9-inch wide device?
Android 2.3?
If it's that cheap, it's hardly worth skipping. Figuring I make about $25/hour, that's two hours of work for a tablet that, while it may be slow, outdated, and not stylish, would do great for browsing the web and watching movies. Maybe it would live in my bathroom as bathroom reading material. Stuff it full of PDF ebooks and podcasts and enjoy my bathroom runs.
AAAA
My wife loves the classics, pretty much all of which are in the public domain, and have been put into some kind of e-book format at Project Gutenberg. I read a lot of Baen books from their free e-book library that one can download in several formats and often come with the paper books on a disc in the back. If this thing will work for that then we'll probably get one. Otherwise, probably not.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"At the bottom end of the range at least, the devices won’t be priced to make a profit"
This is what used to be called "predatory pricing".
Thanks to the Fire OS, this tablet still isn't worth it at $50. I have a Fire HD 7 that I purchased for less than $70 and there is no piece of technology in my home that is used less due to the poor offerings in Amazon's app store.
I guess that I could make sense for Amazon to undercut the price of their competitors for their tablet since they can configure Fire OS to only allow purchases from Amazon.
Want an movie? Buy it and download it from Amazon! Want a book? Buy it and download it from Amazon! Want some music? You get the idea.
Did we mention that you get a discount and some "free" downloads if you sign up for Prime? Come on, it's only $99 a year!
I'm sure that they'll make it difficult as hell to sideload apps and download content to the tablet via USB as well. No thanks, I'll pass on this one.
Of course depending on how hard it is to rip that screen out. 50 bucks for a high quality 6" screen is pretty ok, and maybe some of the other hardware can be used too. I'd have a few projects where I can use cheap screens, how many can I order at once?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They'll make it up on the back end by recording every micro-interaction you have on every site and document you browse, compiling them and developing a probably mostly derogatory profile of you then selling that profile to your potential employers, insurance providers, political enemies, buisness competitors... you know anyone with a wallet . In the TOS you signed, these entities are referred to as "partners".
The only reason I'd see in buying a loss leading tablet is if I could hack it into something more useful. I certainly wouldn't be interested in a device which is locked into Amazon's substandard OS.
Seriously, you know people are going to be all over this and root with some version of some alternate OS. Either android or one of the tablet Linuxes.
Hajo Monogamy: Belief so strong that millions of people end perfectly good relationships in order to start a new one.
No worries. They'll make it up in volume.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
I think some no-name Android tablets are already available at about $50 price, but this one should set the standard in value per dollar and push other major vendors to shift their prices down. This may also affect laptop and smartphone prices a little.
Sure a $50 tablet is nice but I really would like to see an inexpensive 11x8.5 e-ink kindle for that price. I read a lot of larger books with images that would be better on a larger reader.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Sure, there will be some of those folks.Overwhelmingly people just take defaults even when it doesn't take much effort to change, unless the default is very clearly perceived as horrible.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I told them how to do this years ago. Include the fire phone as part of prime.
Let the race to the bottom begin! Lets see Samsung make a dime now.
Apple execs must be laughing their heads off.
Why would anyone buy this tablet from Amazon?
I can already get all these features on a $59 tablet from Microcenter
Touchscreen
MS Office 365
Micro hdmi port
Micro sd card slot
Micro usb port
FULL SIZE USB 2.0 port
Bluetooth
WiFi
Front and rear facing cameras
Integrated Microphone
Integrated Speakers
Audio Output port
1280 X 800 IPS dispay
I purchased 3 of them several months ago and they have been in constant use. I have had no problems.
There is a wealth of free Windows software that runs on them, and
it is so easy to write your own custom software for this device with C++, C#. Python, Visual Basic etc.
I love it!.
WinBook TW700
A new textbook goes for 50$... so if one of these is lost or stolen the impact to school or students to pay fine are the same.
love is just extroverted narcissism
RCA already wins this with a $39.00 tablet in most walmarts. $50 is overpriced for the junk level stuff.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There are innumerable sub-$50 tablets out there everywhere (RCA? who knew?); see dinodirect.com (or even Amazon!)...
Usually craptastic features like:
Resistance Touchscreen (more common 3 years ago)
Charge through a barrel plug (not usb)
No IO or sensors (except a headphone jack)
What's going to make the Amazon one special?
captcha: goodies (seemed appropriate)
Project Gutenberg makes their books available in the .mobi format, which the Kindles reads natively (the .azw format is based on .mobi, which Amazon picked up when they bought Mobipocket many years ago.)
That's not a real tablet. It runs a Microsoft OS.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.