The world’s first tablet to feature Android Honeycomb came along with a lot of promise though it did not take much time for the initial excitement that the tablet generated to fizzle out soon – thanks to the absurdly high price tag that the tablet came with. However, the company now seems to be in a damage control mode and as a first step, price of the 32GB Wi-Fi enabled Xoom tablet PCs has been reduced by Motorola Mobility from $599 to $499 in the US market. For the Taiwan market the same model has been reduced from NT$19,800 (NT$687) to NT$16,900.
To many, the price reduction by Motorola has been to counter the launch of the entry level Eee Pad Transformer tablet PC from Asus, the cost of which in the US market is just 399 US dollars. In fact, it might not be a scenario limited to only the XOOM as with the launch of the iPad3 and Google’s next generation Ice Cream Sandwich tablets scheduled later in the year, there are further price drops that can be expected from other vendors in order to make sure that their soon to be outdated models don’t get piled up.
However, coming back to the XOOM, the price cut can be considered a desperate attempt on part of the company to boost sales of the Honeycomb tablet. Motorola is reported to have sold just 100,000 units of the XOOM within the first two months of its launch while a total of 250,000 units were sold in the first quarter of 2011.
In light of these, it will be interesting to see if there is an increase in consumer interest in the XOOM.
via digitimes, via skattertech
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
