Marc Saltzman on the iPad mini’s price on thestar.com:
And the price: While my first impressions of iPad mini are very positive — and there is certainly a market for a more portable and less expensive iPad — the price is just way too steep compared to other 7-odd-inch tablets.
While I was hoping for a $249 product, I half expected it to be $299 — but at $329 it isn’t far off from iPad 2’s $399 price tag. You know what? It doesn’t matter, as consumers are going to eat this up. It’s Apple.
There are a lot of people making comments about the iPad mini’s price without the faintest understanding of how the tablet market has shaped up the last few years. How many non-iPad tablets have to launch (and fail) until people realize that none have sold in significant volumes? Dell Streak, Galaxy Tab, Sony Tablet S, BlackBerry PlayBook, ViewSonic ViewPad – the list goes on and on. Even the Nexus 7, the “best” Android tablet ever made, hasn’t made a dent against the iPad. Amazon won’t even say how many Kindle Fires they have sold. The iPad mini’s price does not bear comparison to that.
Despite cutthroat pricing, and a race to the $99 bargain bin, Android tablets haven’t sold. Apple is not competing with Android tablets. The iPad mini’s price fits perfectly in Apple’s product line, and that is all Cupertino cares about.
With a $329 option, Apple has given consumers a lower entry point into the tablet market (Read: iPad market). That’s the key here.
