Samsung is doing what it should have done a long time back. One, its releasing the Wi-Fi only version of the 7inch Samsung Galaxy Tab and second, at a price of $399 or even $350 (the price that was displayed on Fry’s website but has gone under now).
The question is whether Samsung’s move has come a little too late. The market is much richer in tablets today compared to October 2010 – better tabs are already here and more are coming in the next few months – at better price and with better specs. A 7inch tab running Froyo and selling at $400 versus a 10.1 inch tab running the tablet optimized Honeycomb at $400 (a possibility with the Eee Pad Transformer from ASUS) or an iPad 2 for $500, what’s it going to be? No prizes for guessing right.
Samsung could have done a lot better in sales when it brought the first Android tab into the market last year but the high price of $600 took its toll. Now, Samsung itself is planning the release of Honeycomb models of the Samsung Galaxy Tab in 8.9inch and 10.1inch versions. Would you be willing to shell out $399 or even $350 for a 7inch tab that’s running the smartphone version of Android today?
Of course, Sprint’s offering the original 3G version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab for $200 with a 2 year contract, starting April 3. That’s quite reasonable for a tab that includes Adobe Flash 10.1 support, 3G support, HD multimedia and games, a Cortex A8 1.0GHz application processor, Android Market, Google apps, cameras, email, web browsing and the rest.
If you’re looking for a low cost tablet and are not bothered about the version of the Android OS, give the tablet a try. Else, stick around. The tablet market is going to see a lot of great devices in the next few months.
