BlackBerry
Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook didn’t have the best start in the tablet wars, with the initial release requiring a BlackBerry smartphone to use email. As weird as that was, the tablet had some positives to it, with a unique button-less design relying on gestures.
RIM recently updated the PlayBook to a new version of its operating system, eliminating the smartphone requirement to use email and adding compatibility for Android apps.
As for the pricing, we were told that:
“While there may be specials offered by carriers and retailers themselves, the RIM RRP for the BlackBerry PlayBook remains the same, as follows:
16GB – MSRP $579AUD
32GB – MSRP $689AUD
64GB – MSRP $799AUD”
Since the PlayBook is now over a year old and lacks 3G, we’d be surprised to see anyone pay these prices.
Viewsonic
ViewSonic’s range of tablets have never been the best in their class, but have sometimes offered bargain prices when tablets weren’t so common.
Truth be told, we haven’t seen a ViewSonic tablet for some time, and a ViewSonic representative told us why:
“ViewSonic is not currently selling Android tablets in the Australian market, only Windows platform tablets which are usually sold based on the requirement of organisations that do not want to go down the iOS integration route.”
If you see a ViewSonic tablet, you may be able to pick it up cheaply given that they’re not officially sold here at the moment. In the past, we’ve been pretty critical of ViewSonic’s tablet computers, but if the price was right, you might be persuaded.
What do you think?
While we believe the price drop of the Apple iPad 2 will be a pretty serious threat to Android tablets, manufacturers don’t appear to be flinching much.
Regardless, we’re curious what you think about this. Would you pay more money for a tablet that wasn’t an iPad?
Should the manufacturers be doing their best to compete at a lower price point, or is it completely fine that their tablets cost the same as an Apple iPad?
Time to tell the manufacturers what you really think.
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