New Tablets Set To Be Prescribed For Christmas Period
The boundaries of the tablet market were stretched in both directions in a single week, with announcements positioning two new models ahead of the coming Christmas sales boom.
The cheapest tablet available now costs a staggering low 50 quid.
For that money, you might expect a heavily pared down specification, but seemingly not.
The forthcoming new Amazon Fire model, with seven inch screen, will be available by the end of the month. It will be driven by quad core processor, have front and rear facing cameras and a micro SD slot.
What is more, Amazon claims that it performs better that the iPad Air in durability tests.
How, you might ask, can Amazon make a profit at that price?
The most likely answer is that they will actually lose money on it.
This may well be a loss leader to hook buyers into the Amazon Prime service. The clue comes with the invitation to pay another tenner to rid the machine of constant “adverts for Amazon and other sponsored products” on its lock screen and its ability to pre-load movies and TV shows from Amazon’s vast catalogue.
Meanwhile, at the high end of the spectrum, Apple announced that “the most capable and powerful iPad yet” would be available in time for pre-Christmas sales.
The iPad Pro will have a huge 12.9 inch, 5.6 million pixel screen, optional Smart Keyboard and a minimum of 64Gb storage. This is unquestionably a direct assault on the laptop market. While UK pricing is yet to be revealed in the States the 64Gb model will cost $799 and the 128Gb model will be $949. 4G versions, of course, will cost more.
