PriceWar
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NVIDIA and ASUS tease 7-inch Tegra 3 tablet with ICS and $249 price tag
You know things are about to get crazy when NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and ASUS Chairman Jerry Shen are onstage at the same time. Here at NVIDIA's CES press conference, the two men just flashed a 7-inch Tegra 3 tablet with Ice Cream Sandwich. And guess what? It's going to cost $249! Got that? The same price as the much-slower, lesser-specced Nook Tablet. Given that the point of this brief tease was to prove how inexpensive tablets with current-gen innards can be, the men didn't dally with details like availability or even a product name. If these price wars continue, though, we'd almost rather ASUS take its time before sending this to market -- who knows what else we're going to see in the $250 range over the coming months? Update: It seems to be the MeMO 370T we saw earlier today, which means this slab is sporting an 8 megapixel camera, to boot. Billy Steele contributed to this report.
Samsung crashes iPhone 4S block party, lures Aussies with $2 Galaxy S IIs
Can't say we didn't see this catfight coming after Apple boldly rejected Samsung's settlement offer in Australia, but man, the latter certainly isn't afraid of striking back in its enemy's front yard. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Sammy's set up a pop-up store merely meters away from Apple's Sydney store, all for just stealing the thunder from the iPhone 4S launch this Friday. The campaign? For the first ten customers each day up to Friday, the Korean giant's offering its Galaxy S II for just $2 sans contract -- no wonder the line's already longer than Apple's, according to the Herald. But of course, Samsung's also effectively funding some of these folks for their iPhone 4S from next door, so it's pretty much a win-win situation for both companies. See? There's always a happy ending, and let's hope that the upcoming Nexus Prime won't add fuel to the ongoing patent dispute. [Thanks, Kevin]
Sony cuts e-reader prices: Pocket Edition now $149
Not much of a surprise here, but it looks like you can officially include Sony in the e-book reader price wars. It's now dropped the prices on its three current models: the Pocket Edition is down from $169 to $149, the Touch Edition drops from $199 to $169, and the 3G-equipped Daily Edition is now $299 (down a full $50 from $349). As The Digital Reader blog notes, however, that still leaves Sony a bit out of step with the competition -- the Pocket Edition lacks the WiFi of the similarly-priced Nook, for instance, and the Daily Edition remains a tough sell even at $299.
DirecTV, DISH offer "free HD for life" with a few strings -- anyone signing up?
Just in case you missed the ads airing on TV or splattered across websites (like this one) DirecTV and DISH Network have launched headlong into their latest war. DISH started things last week by offering "free HD for life" (ad embedded from YouTube after the break), eliminating the $10 service charge for new customers signing up for a two year contract with automatic bill pay, or existing customers who either pay $99 "HD upgrade fee" up front, or sign a two year deal and add auto bill payment to their accounts. This weekend, DirecTV began offering its own "HD free for life" deal that scrubs its $10 fee for new customers under similar requirements to the DISH offer. By comparison, HD service is usually included with digital cable packages but we're wondering if dropping the extra fees is enough to make you think of joining the satellite team, or switching your current agreement. %Poll-47589%
HarperCollins pressuring Amazon to hike Kindle prices
The iPad is still a few months away from actual release, but it already has publishers scrambling to be in the right place when the revolution comes. First, Amazon gave in to Macmillan's bid to raise prices on their own store, and now HarperCollins is putting the pressure on that same site to raise eBook prices from $9.99 up to $14.99 or higher. Amazon finds itself in between a rock and an iPad -- if they don't give in to publishers' demands, they could find themselves abandoned for an exclusive Apple deal, but if they do raise prices, sales will start dropping even before the iPad appears. Jobs predicted about this much last week in an interview with Walt Mossberg, saying that publishers would run afoul of the Amazon store, and Jobs would be more than happy to pick them up in iBooks. But the real question is: how much will Apple charge? Historically, Jobs has been pretty antagonistic on pricing against content providers, only recently giving in to the first price increase in the history of iTunes. At the Apple event the other week, Jobs said on stage that prices on the Kindle and the iPad for books would be "the same," so while fleeting images of the iPad showed bestsellers at around $10 (which is what Amazon charges), it's possible that Jobs would go with the $14.99 price to woo publishers over to his side. It'll be an interesting battle -- when the iTunes music store first opened, there basically were no strong competitors in terms of other online music retailers. With the iBooks service, Jobs and the iPad are wading into already populated waters. And while Amazon is feeling the heat of the iPad even before it's on store shelves, odds are that they're not going to go down without an eventual fight.
Vodafone nabs iPhone in prelude to UK price war
Now that O2 has lost exclusivity, everyone's getting in on the iPhone action in the UK. First it was Orange, now Vodafone has inked a deal said to have been signed only last night as a defensive move to stave subscriber defections. The new agreement sees Vodafone selling the iPhone 3G and 3GS to the UK and Ireland in early 2010, a bit later than the Orange Apple expected before Christmas.Update: Official Vodafone UK statement now live.[Via Randomly Accessed and The Telegraph]
Shocker: HDTV price wars headed for Black Friday
It's not like this type of activity doesn't happen every day-after-Thanksgiving here in the US of A, but 2007 is being seen as a banner year for "aggressive pricing" come Black Friday. As expected, competition will likely be most heated in the 40- to 42-inch range, where plasma and LCD manufacturers will both be vying for business from eager consumers. Furthermore, RPTVs and 720p sets in general are expected to sport rock-bottom pricetags as they attempt to compete with the fresher, more attractive 1080p flat-panels. As for pricing, analysts expect the lowest stickers to be found on Olevia, Westinghouse and Vizio sets, while other "top-tier brands" slash hundreds off in an attempt to still look appealing. Whatever the case, we'd suggest you gear up for madness if you're scouting a new HDTV on Black Friday, but apparently, the savings will make the mayhem worth dealing with.[Image courtesy of MSNBC]
