I’m thinking about buying a tablet computer and have begun researching my options. Because of the rich app environment and stability of the Apple platform, I have a slight bias toward the iPad, but not enough of a bias that I would pay more to get an Apple product.
From what I can see in reviews and from playing around with the tablets at Best Buy, I have three basic choices, the iPad, Google Nexus 10 or the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.
The price for the two Android tablets is around $400 – $450 for 16 GB models and $450 – $500 for the 32 GB models. If I want to get a tablet with 64 GB of storage, I would add a 32 GB Micro SD card to a 32 GB model. Therefore the price point for a 64 GB Android tablet would be $480 – $530.
A look at the Apple web site shows that I can get a refurbished 64 GB iPad 3 (with retina display) for $550. So for just a little bit more money, I could have an iPad with the same storage capacity.
My question is, if I can do this analysis after a few hours of investigation, surely the marketing departments of Google and Samsung can do the same analysis. If they want to establish themselves as iPad killers, why do they price their tablets so high? If you want to sway people away from the market leader you have to do one of two things:
- Provide a clearly better product at the same price (neither Android tablet is clearly better)
- Provide a similar product at a price low enough to attract people away from the leader
It seems to me that neither Google or Samsung has done either of these.
I haven’t made my choice yet, nor have I fully determined that a tablet would really help my productivity.Two questions:
- Is it worth it to plunk down ~$600 for a tablet? Is there sufficient benefit to make this investment?
- If so, which way should I go, Apple or Android?