Infographic: Does the iPad cost too much compared to the competition? (No.)

Of all the criticism being leveled at the iPad — no multitasking, poor text input, lack of 23rd century Federation replicator technology — I’ve yet to hear anyone complain about the attractive $499 entry-level price. But just in case you aren’t convinced that the iPad is ridiculously, absurdly cheap for its feature set, behold, the inevitable infographic, put together by Darren Beckett.

There’s criticisms to be leveled at the Infographic — it ignores, for example, comparisons to various Android and Intel Atom based tablets in favor of attacking e-readers — but it still gets the point across: the iPad beats the competition, spec for spec, at the cost of a very slight price premium. In fact, in direct comparison, only the Barnes & Noble Nook seems to be appropriately priced in comparison.

For what it does, the iPad is simply the cheapest tablet out there. Don’t expect a mere infographic to finally put to rest the inexorably critical mutterings of the so-called “Apple Tax,” though.

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About the author

John Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in iPad |

http://www.hoggworks.com/ Brian
If cost breakdowns are accurate, and if the iPad really is just a big iPod Touch, then Apple’s WELL made their R&D investment back already, and they are hyping up the price of the thing pretty drastically. If they sold the thing for $300, which they could seemingly afford to do while still making a profit, it would interfere with existing Touch sales (presumably), so the higher price could easily be an artificial attempt to keep sales strong.
Nothing wrong with that strategy, though it wouldn’t seem terribly unfair to call that an “Apple Tax.” Though by that measure price gouging of any sort would be a “COMPANY Tax.”
DVR
This is one of the dumbest comparisons I’ve seen in some time.
Which one of the iPad competitors listed can I use to create and deliver a professional slide presentation? Which one can I play a modern 3D game on? Which one can I use to crunch numbers and graph them for my statistics class?
It seems the low cost of entry into “journalism” that the web affords encourages all manner of slipshod “reporting”. Amateurs.
Sad really.
Sam
The criticisms leveled on the iPad are unrelated to cost, which actually is one of its few saving graces, but rather the unwarranted hype and unimaginative nature of the device. Even if the device is a bargin, the point is, why would you buy a $5 painting that isn’t interesting.
nabil2199
DVR: they all have E-ink screens, that’s the most important thing for an e-reader
nabil2199
@nabil2199: well almost all
iFanboy
E-ink is about as worthless as that linux crap, nabil.
~ the REST of the normal world does not care about it, and it’s not going anywhere.
iAMFanboy
iFanboy
NABIL?
“iAMFanboy” is just another theft from me, the AUTHENTIC iFanboy.
[there's a field that has to be filled in: 'Mail (required, but not published)']
The name ‘iFanboy’ is linked to my email address, as Cult of Mac can confirm.
“E-ink is about as worthless as that linux crap, nabil.
~ the REST of the normal world does not care about it, and itâ€™s not going anywhere.”
NONE of that represents my views. If I knew enough about it, they might be.
“..and it’s not going anywhere” sounds prophetic, and may come to pass
cecemf
3G ONLY ???
iPad as Bluettoth, Wifi and 3G ! the board is wrong !