Speaking of Samsung, can you tell that Apple’s biggest rival in the nascent tablet market is feeling the heat from the iPad 2? According to new rumors and the leaked spec sheet above, Samsung’s already readying to counter Apple’s second-gen iPad by dropping the price of their 7-inch WiFi tablet the Galaxy Tab to just $399, undercutting the cheapest iPad 2 by $100 bucks.
It would be a smart move by Samsung. After the iPad 2 was announced, Samsung openly admitted that they would need to reconsider the pricing of their forthcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1, a ten-inch version of the original Galaxy Tab that is more iPad-like in form factor.
Of course, it also implies a certain degree of desperation to take a credible share of the tablet market from the iPad. At $399, Samsung would almost certainly be selling the Galaxy Tab at a loss. $399 is about what I think a Froyo-based 7-inch tablet should cost, but it’s probably not what it does cost to manufacture. Samsung won’t be able to keep this up forever.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
29 responses to “To Counter iPad, Samsung Might Drop Price Of Galaxy Tab To $399”
It is hard for Samsung to beat Apple, even if they offer Galaxy Tab for $99
Not nearly enough. Drop it to $99 and they might be able to clear out the unsold stock already in the channel. But the Tab is officially obsolete.
How does practically giving the product away help Samsung long-term. They still may have a hard time just clearing this older tablet from their inventory. It doesn’t seem like the consumers are all that interested in 7″ displays. It would make more sense for them to get out of the way and just let Apple do its thing by giving them more components.
I know the Droidtards will be jumping for joy with the Galaxy Tab selling for $399. Instead of last year’s tech, they’ll see it as a bargain and try to root it so it runs Honeycomb or something. Even I think it’s worth $399 so it’ll be hard for the Android fanbois to resist.
I’ll give ’em a hundred bucks for one. I could find something useful to do with it for that price. Isn’t worth much more, though.
Hard to beat, yes. Hard to compete @ $99? I dunno about that…
Not a fan of the Galaxy Tab. Big Android phone… but still, it’s not useless. Just overpriced :\
Samsungs website tries to flog it with a contract for 249.99
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobi…
anybody cheaper… Jup they are selling like gangbusters – Samsung is definitely struggling to keeping them in stock…
drop it to $399 and add honeycomb… froyo is not meant for tablets, it just aint right. i know, its not dual core but that doesnt mean it cant be done. hackers have it running on a droid incredible, although not anywhere near fully functional.
$100 cheaper than the iPad 2, but it also has 1/2 the screen size and isn’t as thin. It’s not the worst deal, but if they can get it closer to $350 they’ll have that section of the market to themselves.
That is for the 3G version.
This $399 version is the Wifi only version.
This is still going to be a tough sell given that Apple is selling the original iPad for $399, and reconditioned units for $349.
Apple have been selling the previous iPhone model at almost give away prices since the 3GS, and looks like it is going to continue the practice with the iPad.
Given the choice between a $399 7″ Galaxy Tab running the old version of Android (with no native apps) and a $399 10″ iPad running the latest version of iOS (with over 65,000 native apps), I would choose the old iPad.
The Tab is better anyway.
http://bit.ly/dI3hcF
They can drop to zero, but would not buy another Samsung POG ( piece of garbage). Tried a phone and a monitor and both worthless
Listen to this story I heard today:
My work buddy was coveting my iPad 1 and almost bought it until he went into his Verizon store to check up on Verizon iPads. The dork salesperson gave him a load of sh!t about how the iPad sucks, how all free apps crap out after six months then you get charged for them, how the iPad 2 is smaller (not thinner) than the iPad 1. So my dopey work buddy bought a girlie Galaxy for $200 (??).
What a bunch of douchebags at Verizon.
Enable the cellphone on the Galaxy and I and millions will buy two or three of them