Motorola’s Xoom Android 3.0 tablet will reportedly cost $799, which may make users reconsider purchasing another device. Forcing users to buy a data plan to access Wi-Fi, which has been proposed, may solidify those plans for another tablet.
Consumers are up in arms over the sticker price that Verizon Wireless and Best Buy have allegedly given to the Motorola Xoom tablet, and few can blame them. Both Android Central and Engadget have reported the price, citing evidence from the companies involved.
It has also been confirmed that customers must purchase a 3G data plan to enable Wi-Fi on the Xoom. There are also no announced plans of a Wi-Fi only Xoom tablet. The fine print in the leaked Best Buy flyer for the Xoom reads, "To activate Wi-Fi functionality on this device, a minimum of one month data subscription is required."
Verizon’s data plans for the Xoom range from $20 per month for 1GB of data to $80 per month for only 10GB. Couple this with Verizon’s plans to throttle bandwidth and users could end up paying nearly $1800 for a tablet and data, both of which may be hampered.
For Apple’s iPad, Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi-plus-3G models are available with costs ranging from $499 to $829. Even the Samsung Galaxy Tab sells for $599 and $649 from Verizon Wireless and AT&T, respectively.
"This is very aggressive pricing in the face of consumers’ clear willingness to treat Apple products as the ‘gold standard’ and worthy of a premium, with competing products representing some kind of compromise, which is typically reflected in pricing," Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin told eWeek.
Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said people who wanted a tablet were willing to pay $260, down from the $500 on average a consumer was willing to pay in June 2010.
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