The Unofficial BlackBerry Weblog
We just heard that Walmart in Quebec, Nov. 16th through the 22nd, and the rest of Canada, Nov. 18th through the 24th, will sell the 16 GB BlackBerry PlayBook for $198. The 32 GB and 64 GB models will we on sale for $298 and $398 respectively.
Whether or not Walmart in the U.S. will hold a similar sale remains to be seen, but, now that the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are upon us, RIM simply won’t be able to sell the BlackBerry PlayBook for much more than $200.
[Via RedFlagDeals]
Back during Research in Motion’s Second Quarter Fiscal 2012 earnings call Jim Balsillie said that we would see price cuts on the BlackBerry PlayBook. Once those price cuts starting to happen RIM put out a press statement making it clear that the price of the BlackBerry PlayBook had not changed, and, the discounted pricing that you were seeing was part of a number promotional plans in place for the fall with our retail partners that are intended to drive sell-through and increased adoption of the BlackBerry PlayBook.
Well, it looks like that promotional pricing is coming to an end as pricing on the 16 model PlayBook has gone back up to $499. I dare say that RIM has no chance of selling any meaningful number of devices at the regular price. I’d be willing to bet that you will soon see another promotion bringing the price of the PlayBook back down to at least $299, possibly lower. Something tells me that the price of the BlackBerry PlayBook is about to get very interesting…
[Source]
Research in Motion’s first stab at a tablet device, the BlackBerry PlayBook, isn’t really doing all that well. The hardware is pretty good, but, the software has been weighed, measured, and found wanting. We’ve seen pricing on the PlayBook drop 40% to 50% and even more in some cases, and, although RIM is calling the decrease in price special discounting to improve sell through (it’s all semantics as far as consumers are concerned), the PlayBook today will cost you significantly less than it did a couple of weeks ago.
Word on the street is that pricing for the BlackBerry PlayBook will start at $399 for the 8GB model. Research in Motion will also release 16GB and 32GB models that will retail for $499 and $599 respectively. The BlackBerry PlayBook doesn’t come in a variant with a wireless radio, so, users must have access to Wi-Fi or use their BlackBerry device to tether the PlayBook in order to gain internet access. The big question for me is if wireless carriers will charge an additional fee to BlackBerry users tethering their BlackBerry PlayBook to their BlackBerry devices?
During an interview in Seoul, Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie hints that the BlackBerry PlayBook will sell for less than Apple’s iPad. “The product will be very competitively priced” and will launch in Q1 expanding globally in Q2. It looks like the BlackBerry PlayBook will cost less than $500. How much less remains to be seen. Personally, I believe for the PlayBook to have any real shot we need to see it in the $299 to $349 price range.
[Via Bloomberg]