I was surprised when everyone was predicting $249 for so long, because Amazon plays to win, and $199 was a reachable price that both beats the Nook Color and sounds like a screaming deal to consumers.
My guess is that unless reviews of the device are terrible, they will sell like crazy this holiday season. The TouchPad fire sale proved that there are tons of people interested in a tablet but not willing to pay the $4-500 entry price. I expect Amazon will attract millions of them.
Yes, Amazon is efficient and plays to win. However, given what Motorola and Samsung have been producing, I think people had justifiable skepticism. Even the WiFi-only, 7" Galaxy Tab is priced at $350 (75% more than the Kindle Fire). Granted, Amazon seems to have more of a "game-console" product cycle with the Kindle series. If they don't have to up the specs every 6-12 months with a new processor, display, etc. they'll be able to get a lot more money for the same design.
But the Nook Color has probably been the most successful Android tablet/ereader to date, and Barnes and Noble hit $250. Amazon has been more aggressive than B&N on price with the e-ink Kindles, so that's why I'm not surprised they were here.
What separates Amazon and B&N from Motorola and Samsung is that content sellers don't have to make all their money on the device -- they're really interested in the back end revenue stream from books, music, video, etc. It's the same basic idea as selling gaming consoles as a loss and collecting a toll on all of the game sales for that device.
It's not too surprising. The only source I've seen for $249 is Marco Arment. Many thought the iPad would cost $1000 because of a WSJ article. It ended up costing half as much. I'm not surprised that both Amazon and Apple would both use the press.
>The TouchPad fire sale proved that there are tons of people interested in a tablet but not willing to pay the $4-500 entry price.
The $99 Touchpad is half as much as the Fire and is much as the e-ink Kindle. The Touchpad was also sold at a huge loss.
I used to like Marco Arment. But he's one of those people that was better left to keep himself quieter. The more out spoken he's gotten the more obnoxious he's gotten.
Sometimes it's best to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Or something like that anyway. The more Marco opens his mouth the more of a fool I think he is.
I enjoyed Build and Analyze (his podcast at 5by5) in the beginning, but he got to the point where he was just being more and more obnoxious.
He's not Gruber, yet he seems to be trying to be Gruber.
Ah well, this is just another of his predictions that has gone wrong.
Thank you for sharing this. I had been feeling similarly for awhile but couldn't really boil down why. His blog went from must-read to unreadable. I wish I could remember which post threw it over the top for me but I had a visceral reaction at one point best summed up as Really?
On the Gruber thing, he has written saying that Gruber is his ideal reader, so yo aren't far off the mark.
I think that as his traffic, profile and software sales have grown, he has lost his humility, which is a bad thing for writing.
That's a pretty good summary I think. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but he comes across as an arrogant prick on his podcast and it seems to be boiling over into his blog as well.
I just can't enjoy reading or listening to him anymore.
The TouchPad also sold out as fast as people could find and purchase them, and you could easily turn right around and flip it for more than $200 on Ebay (typical seemed to be between $225 and $240, from what I could tell).
That strongly suggests that HP could easily have charged more and still moved all the units they wanted to move -- even for a discontinued product running an obscure OS.
If this is true, that price is pretty damn killer. Pricing your tablet at $300 less than the main competition is huge, and now a tablet fits comfortably between a Kindle and a Netbook in terms of price.
Nice one Amazon. It's smaller, and cheaper, has content and is Android. I certainly see where this fits into the market. I'm sticking to an iPhone, but would like to have access to the Android ecosystem and want something smaller than the iPad, and I would rather get a better laptop at home than pay iPad money.
It's a HUGE powerplay, but I just don't know if it can beat the iPad. I think Amazons moving into be a serious competitor now. This product definitely cements it.
