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 Originally Posted by cardfan
Why not? We got people valuing tablets at 399, 499 or whatever. Smartphones are valued more than that and sold at similar prices. An iphone goes for 599 & 699 but is sold at 199/299.
While that's true, the reason I suspect carriers don't do similar deep discounts on tablets is because it's a new market for them, and they know that wherever they set the ceiling...they can't go above it. So they're leaving themselves room for the price to drop if the market demands it. And frankly, if HP puts their tablets at an on-contract subsidized price of $99-$199, they're slitting the throat of their phones.
People perceive a substantial value difference between a tablet and a phone, and the component costs bear that out.
Selling tablets as separate plans might be hard to do. Customers might bite if it was an addon to an existing voice plan. 30 more per month plus the 199 for the tablet. Or offer a combo data plan at 50.
They've been trying to get this figured ever since the Galaxy Tab launched. While they're well over a million in sales, I figure a mere fraction of that is from US carrier subsidy sales.
If I'm Sprint for instance, i want people to buy those touchpads in my carrier stores as an addon for their existing phone plan. I want to sell them more options. I don't want for them to get bored with a phone and move on, now i want them having two devices which ties them to the same plan.
Just thinking out loud here. They'll have to get creative though.
Yeah...most def. But I think Sprint's attention is going to be on the tablet-ish device they are going to launch on Feb. 7. Supposedly, it's either an HTC 3D device or an HTC dual-screen tablet thing of some sort.
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