After being mocked on its viewing experience by Apple during the launch of the 7.9 inch mini iPad , Google is reportedly dropping the price of its 7 inch Nexus tablet manufactured by Asus. The 16GB model of Nexus will cost $199 instead of the original of $ 249 . Similarly the 32 GB model will be priced modestly at $ 249 clearly differentiating it from the mini iPads 16GB base model of $329 making the smaller screen tablet competitive both in memory as well as price point.
As per Gartner’s projections, Apple’s share of the global tablet market will drop from 61% to 53% this year while the Android OS that powers the vast and diverse range of manufacturers from Samsung, Google Nexus, Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and hundreds of other cheaper models produced mainly in Asian subcontinent will rise from 34% to 41%. Apple’s launch of the mini iPad was precisely to stop the growth of competitors wooing away mid segment customers with a more competitive price point especially in the US and Europe. Google which was supposed to have its Android event in NYC this monday announcing the price of a slew of new models , that has been now postponed due to hurricane Sandy, has now decided to cut prices countering Apple’s introduction of the mini tablet.
Amazon has however gone aggressively deriding the Apple mini tablet with support from knowledgable analysts at Gizmodo and Wired. The online retail giant has published a quote from Gizmodo regarding its competitor’s product on its home page that says it all “…your [Apple] 7.9-inch tablet has far fewer pixels (30% less) than the competing 7-inch tablets! You’re cramming a worse screen in there, charging more, and accusing others of compromise? Ballsy.” The article further goes to mock CEO Tim Cook who had just a year ago said that Apple would never built the 7 inch tablet but now is responding to the market competition and says that Apple compared to Kindle Fire HD is charging more for less. The Wired website has also questioned Apple on value for money and the sales of Kindle Fire rose following the analyst reports. Still such comparisons will not stop users from buying the mini iPad whose white and black models sold out within days of launch and have a 2 weeks waiting as of now.
I love to write on anything and everything under the sun from Project Management to Poetry, Economics to Travel and Technology. But most of all I love to write about our planet earth, about which you can read more in my blog Ecology to Economics. You may also meet me at http://www.twitter.com/ecothrust
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Tags: Amazon Kindle Fire, Apple mini iPad, gizmodo, google-nexus, tablet-wars, Wired
