The proper price for a tablet

[andrewducker]

HP released the 16GB touchpad at £350. Nobody bought it.

They then decided to get out of that market and dropped the price to £89 in order to get rid of them. They sold out pretty much instantly.

And now they seem to be selling on ebay consistently for about £200.

Which tells us that for an average 10" tablet that's not an iPad, the correct price to sell them at is probably around that, if you want to go mass market.

The problem being that nobody seems to be able to make them that cheaply. About as good as it gets seems to be the Archos 101, which looks distinctly old-fashioned now.

I suspect I'll be holding off for at least a year, probably two, before I end up with one. At the moment, they just aren't worth the money for one that's worth having.

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I read that the plan was to have them at around $250 by now, but the Japan earthquake destroyed the plants that were capable of manufacturing some of he essential parts at that price point (the screens I think but I can't remember for sure) leading to a shortage of those parts and price gauging by other factories that could make the parts creating a temporary price spike at the consumer level.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Also: Apple are not afraid to use their $70Bn cash pile to place gigantic advance orders -- a petabyte of memory here, ten million displays there -- that seriously distort the global market for specific component types.

Apple gets a huge ROI from this because the economies of scale drive down the BOM for their products, thereby increasing their profit per unit sold, while simultaneously shafting their rivals by giving them supply chain headaches.

And then we get fun like this (TL;DR is: essay explaining why nobody in the PC biz seems to be able to produce a laptop as good as the Macbook Air, even with Intel bending over backwards to help).

[andrewducker]

Yup. Laptop makers just don't seem to have been willing to break out ultralaptops into their own category to the point of making them as good as the Air. It really shouldn't be that hard.

And I do get fed up with PC sites that feed you a load of rubbish as the starting point. There must be a better way of matching up the various things that consumers want. I should be able to pick a monitor size, be told what baseline battery life is, and then watch it go down as I choose more powerful components for it (for instance), but that's not something they're set up to do.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I read an article on this very affect recently, I think linked by daring fireball.

having only attempted to buy a non-Apple machine once [my ex-wife's desktop] it kinda surprises me that web portals use language that uselessly vague. It's fortunate that I was aiming for low end, cost-effective, or I'd have had no clue what to buy. I fairly quickly ordered an Inspirion 530 with 20" monitor. I think.

[andrewducker]

They have two choices: vague language (that's useless for techies) or specific language (useless for the mass market). Guess which one works better for them :->

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

now here's something I find *fascinating*

Apple were prescient enough to know that every PC manufacturer out there would try to build something that looked like an iPad, and made it virtually impossible for them to do so.

The clever thing for other manufacturers to then do is.... build products that DON'T look [or function?] like an iPad. As in, design their own.

they didn't. They floated - as Apple knew they would - inferior and more expensive products, bitching like hellfire that Apple has the market sown up and is using patents against them.

see also Air.

Well played, Tim Cook.

[NB: I do not own an iPad or an Air, and don't like the physical design of the iPhone 4. Currently I am mostly using an '05 laptop loaded with ubuntu]

[autopope.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely correct. However ...

I recently bought a Viliv N5 -- Korean palmtop PC. It's superbly made (Apple-class design and finish) and far more useful than a regular netbook -- which is, after all, an anaemic PC laptop: this is a netbook the size of a Psion 5 palmtop, which puts it in a pretty unique part of the map.[*]

And you know what? Viliv went into liquidation a month or so ago. It seems everybody wanted tablets to the exclusion of them being able to market something genuinely different.

Let's also remember that the Windows Tablet PC spec was on sale and available since about 2003; the UMPC standard since 06 or 07 ... what Apple did with the iPad was not to produce the first tablet PC, but to produce the first one that had a critical mass of software tailored to match the user interface available at launch (via iPhone emulation).

(N5's are currently going on eBay for around 50% more than they used to cost when they were in production.)

[*] Currently runs win7, but sooner or later I'm going to get Ubuntu up on it ...

[andrewducker]

Yes - I played with a Windows tablet a few times, but its problem was that it was fairly unusable without the keyboard accessible. Almost none of the software on it used the stylus, and frankly the tablet bit was just a gimmick.

It's possible that Windows 8 will change this, but I'm not betting on it.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Let's also remember that the Windows Tablet PC spec was on sale and available since about 2003; the UMPC standard since 06 or 07

I was early to board the Origami Train; my Samsung Q1 arrived May 23, 2006. My current laptop is a Viliv X70EX, which is similar in size and weight to the Samsung but is vastly more powerful with longer battery life too.

I'd never get an iPad; it's too big for my needs. a 7" slate is easy to carry and use on the run; a 10", not so much.

-- Steve remembers getting stopped on the street alot with his old Q1 in two periods; soon after getting it, and soon after the iPad was announced several years later.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Gosh, how disappointing N5s aren't available from the manufacturer any more - this is the first I've heard of them and they look ideal.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The hysteria over the HP touchpad was quite remarkable, I'm not sure if £200 is a fair reflection of what people would ordinarily pay, or if thats inflated slightly due to the weird MUST HAVE mentality people developed over the things.

[andrewducker]

A lot of people at work were of the "Well, I'd never buy a tablet normally. But for £90, how bad can it be?" mentality.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

From what I've read about what you can actually do with the HP touchpad, I think the answer to that question is probably 'still quite bad'. Reading email and surfing the internet seems about it.

Only apple could invent a laptop without a keyboard and convince people its a must have item. :)

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

the iPad is a curiosity. I don't know of anyone who bought one with a specific need or purpose in mind, but everyone I know that has one uses it constantly - more so than they'd normally use a laptop or desktop.

having not used one, I can only assume I'd find uses for it in much the same way as my iPhone [crappy old 3G, now barely functioning] is an absolutely integral part of my existence.

The HP touchpad is a damned shame. I really hoped it'd succeed as originally intended, but the company is now led by a man who has no interest in it whatsoever.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

As an iPad owner ...

The iPad is like a Mac in 1985.

Lots of people point to it and say "it's a toy". And they're absolutely right, from the angle they're looking at it: the software ecosystem is immature, it's very restricted in what you can do with it, and there's "computer stuff" missing from it (by design, like the arrow keys that didn't appear on the Mac 128K keyboard).

At the same time, it's like a having Mac in 1985. Today, all personal computers use a UI descended from that 1985 Mac. (Windows started out as just such a UI clone.) It feels like holding a chunk of the future. And, for all that it's limited, you can do a surprising amount of stuff with it.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

We use a Galaxy 10.1 all the time, as a kitchen-table browser and as a way of passing a bit of Internet from person to person.

I won't write more than the shortest of mails on it, but as a portable browser & photo album for social situations it is wonderful.

That is a niche that a laptop fits so badly that I had never realised there was even a niche there until the thing turned up, and then it was the obvious use for it.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I think it is similar to the netbook phenomenon. There's a significant market for people who want something cheap and cheerful that can lie around on the coffee table, be slung across the room frisbee style and you don't care if it breaks all that much because it's cheap. I know I still get great use from my 701 eeepc (which by any standard is now crap... tiny screen, tiny battery life, no processing power and 3-4 years of wear means the screen is scratched and the mouse buttons take effort) because it's a nicer browser than the phone and you can lie on the couch and look things up without the effort of hauling out a laptop or going to a desktop machine.

A price point of £200 or less will get a lot of people buying these but the catch is that every household needs only one and it won't need upgrading in an age.

That is, of course, completely a guess.

[andrewducker]

I tend to agree. Tablets look well optimised for being that kind of device, and for media consumption, and doing tiny amounts of updating, they look very good.

But having used the soft keyboards a bit, I couldn't do without my laptop for anything sizeable.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I had a netbook for a couple of years, loaded with Mint. I loved it.

it got broken [the screen caved] while in transit. I was then given a busted old laptop, which I stuck ubuntu on... and is now effectively my main computer. I use it more and *enjoy* using it more than I ever did the netbook.

what's a bit more worrying is that I currently prefer it to my crazy-powerful Mac Pro. I wonder if that'll change when I get home broadband.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Tablets look like ideal book readers to me (if done right). They really wouldn't have to do much more than that (i.e. email, web pages) fo rme to get one, Of course the non-DRM e-bok market would have to improve significantly - or maybe I'd need the the subscription service we were talking about last week. Just make them fast enough for my 150 pages/hour reading speed and please god, give the option to tap/click to turn a page, "fling" is too damned slow and awkward....

[andrewducker]

Have you tried one of the newer Kindles? The page-turn speed is now pretty good.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

The Kindle is so much better for reading on than the iPad, especially for us ancients who were brought up with paper books. It's so light, and so nice in sunshine. It's also really cheap. I do keep expecting it to work as a touch screen though, and its zoom function is deranged.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

yeah, general consensus seems to be that Kindles are better for read-only use.

which tells me that Kindles and tablets are not direct competitors. This is a good things as both thoroughly deserve success.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

The really amazing thing about ipads isn't the technology inside it. It's not the design. It's not the AMAZING THINGS THAT YOU CAN ONLY DO ON AN IPAD (note: most of these things can be done without an ipad) as the newspapers keep trumpeting in frankly embarassing shill stories.

It's that it is a fashionable computer.

Mobile phones are, in many ways, fashion accessories. They're certainly a status marker, and probably since the Razr, there've definitely been fashionable and unfashionable phones. Sony Ericsson particularly spend a fair amount of time making phones that look interesting. And that matters to a lot of people.

Outside of LAN parties where having glowing peripherals and cases is cool (relatively speaking), desktop computers and laptops aren't exactly a fashion item. Even iMacs aren't, really. They might have a lot of money and time undoubtedly lavished on the design, but they didn't become a hip item to be seen with.

iPads, on the other hand, are a computer that you can be seen with. Less bulky than a laptop, and easy to show off or for people to surreptitiously check out, as with a mobile phone. They don't really need to do anything useful. They don't really need to be good at what they do. Once you get past sentiments along the lines of "this is tech that will be good in a while" and "OMG apps!", it's technology that lets you do the same things that you could already but in a more stylish way. It doesn't just appeal to nerds who want the latest gadget or the most efficient computing option. Also, and this is even more clever, unlike an ipod, everyone can see you using it (so it doesn't need the early distinguishing feature of white earphone leads to show that it's an iphone in your pocket, not a different brand).

This, in my opinion, is where Apple struck gold.

That's the amazing thing about iPads.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

hmm. In general I totally agree with you, but you're missing something very obvious.


Where Apple has succeeded is in marrying technology and design. In the iPad, specifically, they've done this so well that, in use, *both disappear*. You are left purely with what it does, rather than the thing itself. That is why you think neither aspect matters.

one of the absolute golden rules of good design, is that no-one should ever be able to tell how much /bastard-hard/ work went into making something what it is. The thing you end up with should feel like the obvious, natural way to do it.

That's the reason iPads are cool devices.