I still fail to understand on why companies prefer to price their products at the same level as iPad?! Spec for spec, there are not many things that put HP TouchPad to an advantage. No extendable memory, no extra ports, a weak app ecosystem, etc.
Ever since the ASUS Transformer was released at 399$ for a 16GB model, that pretty much became the price to beat for a tablet which wanted to compete with the iPad2
Pricing is also signaling, so you have to be careful undercutting someone if your story is "we have a better product". If the TouchPad is destined for failure, undercutting Apple isn't going to prevent that. The market's already said "$499 is good for a tablet" so it's smart of them to listen to that.
I was going to post a snarky comment about how the Transformer can't compete with the iPad because its not actually shipping yet, blah blah, but I did a search first and found out that it shipped over a month ago.
Which can only mean that ASUS really botched the PR on this one. Neither Engadget nor Gizmodo (arguably the two largest gadget sites) have reviewed it, but the few reviews I did find were generally positive.
I've read about tablets from Motorola, Toshiba, and Samsung, but nothing about the ASUS, which looks to be a decent, relatively cheap Honeycomb tablet.
I have heard a lot of actual talk on tech forums about the Transformer and people trying to find it and excited to buy it. Way more than the other tablets.
I wonder if Asus just didn't send review units to Engadget and Gizmodo. OTOH, isn't the press supposed to be covering things on their own??
In principle I agree, however, much has been made of Apple's buying power when it comes to key components (displays, solid state storage, etc). Apple may well have the lowest actual component cost.
Could HP not just sell below cost for a while to grab some market share? Instead of $100 million in marketing, drop the price by $100 and sell a million devices. It's a more direct benefit.
Certainly they've already spent quite a lot - trade shows, etc - and have the geek faithful aware of the tablet already. It'd be much easier for me to evangelize this at a lower price point.
A $299 price point would rock. "Correct, it doesn't do as much as an iPad, but it's also not as expensive."
This notion that "the market says $499 price points are what tablets should be priced at" is stupid. $499 is what iPads will sell at - no one else has yet demonstrated that a $499 is viable for any other tablet than the iPad. I will say it's foolish to keep trying this late in the game. If a company as big as HP isn't willing to do what it takes to get these in to peoples' hands (which may include selling below cost), there's little hope this will be a viable competitor.
However, Asus' tablet is either out of stock or sells out very quickly, so one could argue that there's not much need for marketing from that standpoint.
I understand the fact about Apple's buying power. But when someone is trying to compete with an established product, you gotta offer something more at some price less to get people to even look at it!
It's going to be interesting to see how the HP Touchpad & Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 do in the next few months. However, the real competition will start when Amazon jumps into the market with their rumored Kal-El tablets later this year.
Nope, it's not possible to offer more for less. Apple is a "good" monopoly, that passes their saving onto customers.
The only way to beat them is to attack from below. Make a tablet that is only good for browsing the web. Maybe add a few cheap features like a camera and GPS, but skimp on expensive features like storage.
If you really want to be cool, add some kind of console controls, so teenagers can play games. Maybe even add some sort of social element - allow them to connect to each other through USB, and play arcade games.
Or attack some other niche that Apple don't own. You could add a bunch of graphics calculator functions, and target students. Just be careful you don't do anything that a $3 App won't do.
Price it at half the price of an iPad, and hope you gain a toehold.
I believe an interface is touch based if you use an object to touch the screen to interact with the interface. Mice do not have this property. Given the downvotes I imagine people at HN disagree with this notion, but here are some links that suggest that there is a part of the world which considers stylus based devices as touch based.
Not only are you wrong, but your links are to vendors of pens that emulate touch. The vendors aren't arguing that "style = touch" but that "our stylus works on touchscreens" (as opposed to styluses that work on pen-based systems).
The fundamental idea of the iPad is that you don't need something else to make it work. It isn't that you mustn't use something else.
The third link was not from a vendor. Here are some non vendor links:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface - "Touchscreens are displays that accept input by touch of fingers or a stylus. Used in a growing amount of mobile devices and many types of point of sale, industrial processes and machines, self-service machines etc."
Why not quote Wikipedia's article on "Touch Screen": "A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus."
Oh wait, because it doesn't suit your purposes either.
The dollars don't matter so much. eBay matters is that you are seen providing better value (which may indue cost). Unfortunately, with the WWDC announcements, it really doesn't look like HP has a better value.
They need something more to compete if they don't want it to be a race to the bottom with Chinese, Taiwanese, and South Korean vendors.
Unfortunately, with the WWDC announcements, it really doesn't look like HP has a better value.
For as long as the MS/Windows ecosystem is a going concern, a sufficiently well executed non-Apple tablet will have a market in those who are anti-Apple.
Ever since the ASUS Transformer was released at 399$ for a 16GB model, that pretty much became the price to beat for a tablet which wanted to compete with the iPad2