Toshiba
In the past year, Toshiba has tried its hand with three tablets, with the 10.1 inch AT100, AT200, and 7 inch AT1S0.
While we’ve yet to play with the AT200, neither of the AT100 series tablets were true standouts, but have managed to play quite well on price.
In fact, in researching this article, we found last year’s AT100 on sale at street price for just under $400, with some stores possibly willing to drop further.
Toshiba, however, didn’t have much to say on the issue of official price drops, a spokesperson merely saying:
“Toshiba has no plans to change the pricing of its tablets.”
The street prices of Toshiba’s tablets are – like some of the Asus products – shifting below what competitors charge, so this may help the company in the end. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Lenovo
Lenovo’s tablet approach has been two pronged, looking after both the business and consumer markets with two different tablets.
We looked at the ThinkPad Tablet last year and found that Lenovo’s combination of a stylus, 3G-ready, and upgradeable tablet worked well, but haven’t yet seen the consumer-styled IdeaPad.
In any case, Lenovo has already announced plans for a tablet similar to the Asus Transformer, with CES providing a perfect place to show it off. While we don’t have that available yet, we’d be surprised if Lenovo rested on its laurels and hoped customers bought its now outdated devices.
Lenovo never got back to us about a price drop, but a quick glance to its page told us that its pricing hadn’t really been changed to compete with the new Apple pricing.
UPDATE (2.33pm, 23/03/12): Lenovo did finally give us a quote on its pricing, telling us:
“Lenovo’s pricing structure is developed based on a number of elements within the local Australian market including competition and the unique value proposition that our products have, and is constantly under review. At this point, we do not have any pricing changes to announce. As the ThinkPad tablet has been developed for high performance and productivity beyond what the multitude of consumer tablets can deliver,  Lenovo’s ThinkPad tablet is designed with the business user in mind.”
So there. No pricing changes… for now.
Acer
Acer has been pretty active in coming up with tablets for release in Australia, so much that the company has released at least three Android tablets locally since mid-last year.
While the slates do need some updating, we’ve heard that new models are on the way with high speed processors and better screens.
Right now, the closest we could find to $429 iPad 2 16GB was the original Acer Iconia A500, a model we’re now seeing for roughly $450 at street price. Some models are available for less from Acer, but all of these had 8GB of storage compared to the 16GB on offer.
We asked Acer if it would shift prices in response to the new iPad pricing and were told:
“Acer will be watching the launch of the new iPad closely. Acer does not have any plans to alter its pricing. Our difference is that we do support our retail and channel partners business models and support them should they position their Acer stock more aggressively in the near future.”
That could mean that if a gadget store – say Dick Smith or Harvey Norman – decides to push its pricing of Iconia tablets to undercut Apple, Acer may actually support them. We’ll just have to see whether companies really want to sell these tablets hard.
