Noticed a few 'price cuts' on various tablets over the last few weeks (Xoom, HTC Flyer and Playbook to name but three) and with the rumoured arrival of the Kindle Fire to these shores in the not to distant future I wonder if we are going to be seeing some more cutting as manufacturers of anything less than the £400 level of tablets look to shift what they can, whilst they can.


Or is this the case of bubbling bursting as people just arent prepared to spend big buck and possible a seperation of the tablet market into two distinct layers (iPad, Tab, £400+ and the sub £300 options).

The reason I ask is that I am tempted to dip my toe into this market and not really sure I want to spend £400 on a device but at the same time not really tempted at the moment by any of the really cheap unfamilar brands you see out there.

It's not really a price war - it's manufacturer's realising they can't compete with the iPad if they charge the same as Apple.

I don't know about the Flyer, but the Xoom and PlayBook both originally launched at the same price as the iPad 2, and both failed miserably, leading to price cut after price cut to try and stimulate sales.

Shops are basically trying to ditch the 7 inch tablets before the amazon fire drops.

Tablets are like touchscreen netbooks with a slower CPU and no keyboard.

If you don't have a laptop they are possibly a budget option.
I'm sure its not really a price war, just supply meeting demand.

A little simplistic.......

Tablets don't run MS bloatware known as windows so don't need as fast a processor. Also the apps are much smaller than normal programs and use api's built into the OS directly so again don't need so much power to run them.

As to keyboard for most minor jobs then the on screen one is fine, if you want to type more then a blue-tooth one will work.

Basically a tablet is a device to consume media,browse etc but not to do "real" work on for most things, but then again the way most people us a computer or laptop then a tablet would do just as well for them, after all younger people find a mobile phone does most of waht they want most of the time.

Lets also be honest a netbook is too small to do much "real" work on either and is underpowered for a lot of jobs / software to work the way you want if at all.

The Fire does seem to have them scuttling, not sure I see the appeal of it myself other than the price. A very 'locked in' offering you get.

I hope there will be a price war, but I suspect it will be more of a general realignment of prices as some of the higher-end Android tablets cost more than an equivalent iPad which, whether you love Apple or hate them, is not sustainable in my opinion (and we have yet to see what the iPad3 will bring in February).

I have an iPad2 and I'm looking to buy a second tablet device. However, I would buy another iPad rather than invest in an Android tablet (as much as I like the customisation possibilities) if the prices were broadly similar.

don't think they are that frightened of the fire. Its natural lifecycle, these products are coming end of life. if you look at tablets like the galaxy tab or transformer and neither are dropping in price at the moment even though there is a new transformer coming.

The Tab and Transformer are the two most popular Android tablets.

Smaller manufacturers have finally geared up to make Cortex A8 SOCs so a majority of these budget £100 tablets are quite new to market.
£100 for a decent budget 7" and £150 for 10" means they now compete more correctly with Netbooks.

The premium ends also needs to be more cutting edge so they now start at £200.

Chromebooks seem over priced too: Amazon - Chromebooks. Looked at one in PC World and it was £400, even the sales person didn't think it was worth the money, could have got a half-decent laptop on the clearance shelf for less than the Chromebook.