Today GalaxyTabLife is reporting that J&R has the new Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus 7.0 available for pre-order in 16 and 32GB configurations. That is great news – the original Galaxy Tab had a number of fans at Gear Diary, even if overall sales were extremely lackluster (especially since Samsung dumped 1 – 2 million into the channel and only sold <10% of them).
The new ‘reboot’ version ups the specs to pretty standard levels for late 2011, with 1.2GHz dual core processor, Honeycomb OS, 1GB RAM, and updated cameras.
Unfortunately it looks like Samsung either missed what has happened in the tablet market this year or thinks they can compete at prices that have failed everyone else (including THEM!).
Either way, if these prices hold, I’ll just go ahead and call the Galaxy Tab Plus DOA (dead on arrival for the TLA challenged) right now.
So what ARE the prices? $399 for 16GB, $499 for 32GB.
Here is the link for the 16GB model
Here is the link for the 32GB model
Why do I call it DOA? It certainly is NOT because I don’t like the looks of it – six months ago had I seen this I would have described my reaction as ‘CLICK’!
But look what has happened – we learned that Samsung GROSSLY misrepresented market pull for the original Galaxy Tab; HP / Palm / webOS is dead and brought on the $99 fire-sale; RIM’s Blackberry has been a dismal failure and has dropped in price; the HTC Flyer has dropped in price to the point when Best Buy had an erroneous $99 price point last week nobody blinked or thought anything was amiss; the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is regularly selling for $349 … for the 32GB version.
Oh – and this little thing called the Kindle Fire.
With the Kindle Fire, EVERYTHING has changed. We have a Playbook-equivalent tablet with a 7″ screen (same as Galaxy Tab), and a number of other similar specs. Plus there is the integrated Amazon experience, assuring compatibility of apps. You lose a bit of speed, some RAM (not confirmed), 8GB storage, and the cameras. That differential results in a $200 price difference – the Galaxy Tab costs TWICE as much as the Kindle Fire.
As a result, the Kindle Fire has seen about 10x as many PRE-orders as the original Galaxy Tab had sales (if you believe the numbers) … and I think Samsung would be happy and lucky to manage in sales the 200,000 pre-orders Amazon has had for the Kindle Fire to date.
The tablet game has changed … it is time for the manufacturers to listen.