BlackBerry PlayBook gets $150 price cut

[Shawn Knight]

Best Buy has slashed the price on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook by $150, bringing the 64GB tablet down to $550. The 16GB model dropped to $450, $50 off the original asking price.

RIM had high hopes for the BlackBerry PlayBook but plans didn’t exactly go as anticipated. The company introduced their tablet in September 2010 with a subsequent release on April 19, 2011.

Two months after launch, RIM missed on their earnings estimates and expected their full-year profit to be as much as 30 percent below its initial target. In the earnings report, RIM said it shipped 500,000 PlayBooks in the previous quarter. This fell way short of the 1 million PlayBooks the company was estimated to ship in Q1.

Many believe that RIM’s decision to launch the PlayBook without several native apps like email and instant messaging was a mistake. In July, they cut 2,000 jobs worldwide as part of a cost-cutting effort.

Best Buy's price cuts could simply be an effort to move more PlayBooks in a market dominated by Apple’s iPad. Two weeks ago, HP bowed out of their WebOS projects and discontinued their TouchPad tablet. Prices dropped as low as $99 with consumers scooping up the remaining devices in mass. HP is said to be planning one last manufacturing run on the TouchPad which will likely all be spoken for through preorders.

Could the PlayBook be next in line for liquidation? How low would the price have to get before you would consider buying one?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/45321-blackberry-playbook-gets-150-price-cut.html

 

[Tekkaraiden]

If the base model were to drop to $100 I'd pick one without a second thought.

 

[St1ckM4n]

Would have to be under the $99 price point of the Touchpad..

 

[aj_the_kidd]

It will all depend on the playbook 2, it thats failure then RIM should just scrap the idea and move on. But the price drop should move the remaining units, maybe

 

[Guest]

How Low Can You Go !

 

[Guest]

Hopefully much lower.....When they are below the price of a NETbook they might sell some..Till then..Only people who like to spend large amounts of cash on toys are buyin.

 

[Guest]

The next year or 18 months will start to show us where the tablet market is going.
I have a ASUS transformer and a new ASUS EP121 windows tablet.

The EP121 is fabulous (except battery life and $1000 price tag). Of course, it is a productivity product versus entertainment product. When Windows becomes available on lower cost architecture, I can see it doing well with people as a productivity device.

The Ipad will be the entertainment tablet king for some time.

My opinion of Android and IOS, is that you can get plenty of "apps"
but get you can't get good "applications".

Again, my need in a tablet is "to do useful work". My kindle and LCD TV fit my entertainment needs.

 

[Wagan8r]

I believe you mean "en masse", not "in mass".

Anyway, I don't know if I would even bite if it was $50. I might just so that I could try to sell 'em on ebay.