[Sonic77]

It's surprising after such public apathy,
that the $198 price point looks like it will sell every Playbook on the shelf.

Is this good for RIM or an ominous sign?

[peter9477]

Good sign. Obviously once the PlayBook has all the stuff that's expected and been promised, it will be worth much more than that to many people. For now, somewhere in the 200-300 range is about what it's worth to most people, unfortunately.

Selling a bunch at that price won't help them make any profit, but the PlayBook wasn't expected to be a sizable chunk of the profit this year anyway. What matters is getting lots and lots of them out there so that developers can build apps and have a decent market to sell into. That will help RIM be able to charge more again once 2.0 is out, so overall it's a good thing people are buying them eagerly at this price. Call it making the best of a bad situation.

[Bla1ze]

Is this good for RIM or an ominous sign?

Of what? The holidays coming? lol.

Of course it's good to get it into peoples hands, problem is -- sustaining their attention when it is there.

[jsn204]

i think there are both positive and negatives to it

for a positive, it will entice people to buy it who may have been once weary of purchasing one. and i can say with confidence, that the playbook is great value for $200, and i think most people would be happy with it and even look forward to future development and 2.0

negatively, the price might make the product look cheap in the eyes of some shoppers. and as well, the potential thought of a 'fire sale' and losing support for the os platform.

at that price, people would naturally compare it to the fire and nook tablet. which are both primarily content consumption devices. so hopefully people aware of playbook's other capabilities which are quite beastly

but obviously its a business strategy to compete with the 200/250 dollar tablets that are coming from amazon and b&n

[FF22]

Good sign. Obviously once the PlayBook has all the stuff that's expected and been promised, it will be worth much more than that to many people. For now, somewhere in the 200-300 range is about what it's worth to most people, unfortunately.

Selling a bunch at that price won't help them make any profit, but the PlayBook wasn't expected to be a sizable chunk of the profit this year anyway. What matters is getting lots and lots of them out there so that developers can build apps and have a decent market to sell into. That will help RIM be able to charge more again once 2.0 is out, so overall it's a good thing people are buying them eagerly at this price. Call it making the best of a bad situation.

I'll drink to that. Another bartender. And another... keep 'em coming till Feb!

[Deathcommand]

It cost quite a bit more in parts to build the PB. :/

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[adamkesher]

It could be positive and it could also blow up in their face if customers are still dissatisfied even at that price point. With the Fire hitting shelves in a few hours, it opens up the whole "man, I could have gotten a Kindle Fire for the same price" gripe for unhappy customers.

[msmara]

Once people find out it's closer to a laptop and nothing like an e-reader, it's gonna be hard to score one on bf.

[bldshd]

I have an extra Bold 9930 from verizon that im willing to trade for a 32gb playbook when they go on sale on black friday..... interested?

[greatwiseone]

I think RIM just want to cut their losses and want to get PB's into people's hands. They are useless in the warehouse and selling them at a loss will help with platform adoption and hopefully generate a wider user base. As I wrote in another thread, while the PB's probably a failure this year, all the R&D work for the PB basically feeds into the BBX phones, and so it's not wasted (unlike the Kin)...

[dagerlach]

The cost of producing these devices appears to be about $275. Those of us that paid high dollar have provided the income for RIM to sell the 16GB models for less than the production cost. These models are 'loss-leaders' for retail stores. These sales also help RIM reach 'critical mass' on the product thereby convincing developers that there is a substantial market for applications.

Is it good...yes. But for those of us that paid more for the device, it's painful to watch.

[Sonic77]

Be interesting to see RIM's tablet plans unfold going forward.

We know software 2.0 comes,
but what about the hardware, does it stay the same, with pricing at $199?

Any room for a upgraded version now, at a higher price?

Maybe a cost savings version at a lower price?

Or just a silent withdrawal from tablets and focus on selling BBX phones?

[brucep1]

RIM should have done this during DevCon. Now, it is directly competing with the release of the Kindle Fire on Black Friday.

Which are people more likely to buy?

1. 7th month old tablet that still doesn't have any features promised at launch.
2. New Kindle Fire that does everything it advertises out of the box.

These discounts needed to come BEFORE the Fire.

[dagerlach]

The Kindle should sell very well based on a good history thus far for the product. It will be interesting to see how sales of the Nook Tablet compare. I think the Nook Tablet is a better comparison to the Playbook. Each of these two devices when compared to the Playbook by your average tablet shopper will typically win out over the Playbook.

[Abrante]

Judging solely on sales and price fluctuations, RIM would have been better off not releasing the PB and entering the tablet market when the PB had the 2.0 features and with whatever specs were adequate to compete at that given time. At this point now they have a dissatisfied group of individuals that purchased the PB at regular price and can't have the price justified since the PB has made little to no progress. The 2.0 software will help but I am assuming that new hardware will be released by competitors on or around the time of the 2.0 software which might render the PB rather old or useless (or should I say Worthless?). I haven't come across a person using a PlayBook here in NYC and 2 of my cousins bought 32gb iPads last week for $600+ tax. Do I believe that the iPad is better than the PlayBook (for my purposes), NO! but, I do agree that RIM should follow in Apple's footsteps and release products when they are as close to primetime as possible. The iPhone was delayed and all Apple did was convince at&t not to sell the 9900 until the iPhone4S is released and peaks in sales. lol, but, it's all good. Whatever works!

I agree with most of the comments that others have posted "RIM and their resellers should have priced the PB accordingly from the beginning ", " RIM should have worked out the basic expected software updates shortly after release ", " Retailers should have lowered the PB price to the expected BF prices atleast 1 month before the Fire tablet ".

[bb.pl]

It's surprising after such public apathy,
that the $198 price point looks like it will sell every Playbook on the shelf.

What makes you think that the $198 price point will sell every Playbook on the shelf ?!?!!

The playbook may have good hardware, qnx os crap etc etc but the 'average' customer does not care about hardware and kernel blah blah and there are only so many blackberry fanbois...who has already bought and cherishing their playbook.

Just comparing to the kindle fire which has built in email, millions of songs, books, apps like imdb, hulu plus, familiar games like angry birds(?), cut the rope or whateever, cloud storage etc none of them are available in the playbook but is on the kindle fire. Even the nook tablet might more usage than a half baked playbook. ****, the raggedy old ipad 1 will not be reduced as much on black friday.

So outside the fanboi bubble there isn't much demand for the playbook and unless they go with something crazy like the price point of the the now dead touchpad its unlikely they will be flying off the shelf.

[saudiben]

wouldn't it b great to have a crystal ball? bought my 64g in Saudi @ a discounted price and do believe the pb has a future. it serves my needs and some people feel the same, some don't. My advise for those who are not happy now and doubt they will be in future, sell, instead of waking up daily frustrated with their pb, the apps or whatever.

[Sonic77]

What makes you think that the $198 price point will sell every Playbook on the shelf ?!?!!...

I'm as surprised as anyone, yet it's happening now.

May be different in the US,
but with no Kindle Fire here in Canada,
this $198 Playbook price has the masses scrambling to find them.

They are already pretty much cleared out of Walmart Canada,
and the sale has not even started yet !

People are buying them like Cabbage Patch Kids ,
paying the full $500 price and hoping for a price match on the weekend.
It's spreading to Bestbuy and Futureshop now too.

See yourself, look a the 40+ pages of this thread
where the upcoming price drop was leaked just a short time ago:

[Elect] [WM] Blackberry Playbook $198 , Starting Nov. 18th - RedFlagDeals.com Forums

[Sonic77]

Price confirmed.
Upcoming flyer price is now showing at Walmart Canada's Quebec stores :

Walmart Canada Online Flyer | Nov 16 to Nov 22 | Apparel, Appliances, Automotive, Baby, Electronics, Grocery, Health, Beauty, Home D�cor, Jewellery, Movies, Music, Books, Office, Outdoor Living, Toys, Sports | Deals, Store Locator, Store Hours | Walm

[bbqkid8]

Just comparing to the kindle fire which has built in email, millions of songs, books, apps like imdb, hulu plus, familiar games like angry birds(?), cut the rope or whateever, cloud storage etc none of them are available in the playbook but is on the kindle fire. Even the nook tablet might more usage than a half baked playbook. ****, the raggedy old ipad 1 will not be reduced as much on black friday.

The Kindle may have email, songs and books, but at launch it won't have Android Market. In fact, just a fraction of that at about 10,000 apps... just like how the PB didn't have many apps at launch, but is growing everyday.

Too bad for the "average" consumer because if they did research they will see that the Kindle is only running Android 2.3 and it isn't sure if it'll have Ice Cream Sandwich... not to mention 8GB storage and no bluetooth (yet?)... if only the "average" consumer did some research.

[bb.pl]

The Kindle may have email, songs and books, but at launch it won't have Android Market. In fact, just a fraction of that at about 10,000 apps... just like how the PB didn't have many apps at launch, but is growing everyday.

Too bad for the "average" consumer because if they did research they will see that the Kindle is only running Android 2.3 and it isn't sure if it'll have Ice Cream Sandwich... not to mention 8GB storage and no bluetooth (yet?)... if only the "average" consumer did some research.

No worries, the average customer will get what it saw.

Amazon or the CEO did not stand in front of a picture that showed it has angry bird bluetooth or saying it will have Android player Android Ice cream sandwich.
I think it might not probably outsell the playbook 19 to 1 in the long run, but the 'average' customer will get what it saw. \\* not some concepts and imaginary demos...neither are they overpaying for the kindle & buying empty hopes.
Also I think the average kindle customer can live without the amazing rate at which the blackberry app world is increasing coming up with 10s of crap books e-book everyday.
So unless you are living in some remote place or Canada where Kindle is unavailable I doubt the playbook will fly of the shelf.

[houshinto#IM]

The Kindle may have email, songs and books, but at launch it won't have Android Market. In fact, just a fraction of that at about 10,000 apps... just like how the PB didn't have many apps at launch, but is growing everyday.

Too bad for the "average" consumer because if they did research they will see that the Kindle is only running Android 2.3 and it isn't sure if it'll have Ice Cream Sandwich... not to mention 8GB storage and no bluetooth (yet?)... if only the "average" consumer did some research.

Unfortunately it comes down to "can they be bothered" and the answer to that is no. They can listen to friends. They can listen to the mainstream media. That's about it. They cannot be bothered to they are easily susceptible to flashy marketing, personal agendas, and above all, hype.

But this is a common phenomenon in many aspects of life. Eg. Politics.

[SurrealCivic]

It's surprising after such public apathy,
that the $198 price point looks like it will sell every Playbook on the shelf.

Is this good for RIM or an ominous sign?

The positive is that if the sales accelerate due to these price points, then RIM won't have to take a large writedown on their PlayBook inventory.

The negative is that this will reduce margins. Last earnings announcement (Q2) margins were 39%, they said that margins would fall to 37% in Q3 due to PlayBook price cuts, but with these deeper price cuts they will fall even further.

However, rumors are flying that RIM will take a writedown on their PB inventory. I think this is a last minute attempt to avoid this.

[Sonic77]

Is RIM holding large stocks of Playbacks or have they all shipped to the channel?

Seen different cost estimates but at $199 retail are they losing about $100 per device?

Would you expect retailers to be restocked and continue to sell at $199 or just sell on hand devices?

[engin]

The current playbook is a first generation design.

It is a product in development.

I believe RIM is clearing the decks for Playbook 2 to go with OS2. The hardware will be the same apart from more RAM, the 3G / 4G capability and I suspect a revised power key.

Playbook 1 prices will be coming down in the UK soon, just in time for Christmas.

Feb will see the new version being introduced.

Discussion regarding the non upgradeability of the current models to OS2 are blatantly daft. The curernt versions are already running the Dev version of OS2!