New Tablets Add Fizz To Market

By Joseph Palenchar On Nov 21 2011 - 6:01am

NEW YORK – Amazon and Barnes & Noble, powerful newcomers to the tablet market, are mixing it up with a smorgasbord of new Wi-Fi and cellularequipped tablets during the holiday season to potentially erode Apple’s market share.

The new products, all Android-based, include:

• Amazon’s $199 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet, which went on sale Nov. 14 with dual-core 1GHz microprocessor, 8GB of embedded memory, and no memory expansion slot through Amazon and 16,000 U.S. stores;

• the $249 7-inch Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, which shipped last week with 1GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of internal storage, and 32GB MicroSD slot to join the Nook Color, whose priced dropped to $199 from $249 as B&N added new audio and video features to it.

• AT&T’s Galaxy Tab 8.9, which is the second tablet equipped with AT&T’s 4G LTE/HSPA+ technologies and became became available Nov. 20 through AT&T’s direct channels at $479.99 with two-year contract; and

• T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus and Huawei-made Springboard tablet, bringing the carrier’s selection of 4G HSPA+ tablets to four for the holidays, all with tablet-optimized Android Honeycomb OS.

A 16GB version of the Wi-Fi-only Honeycombbased Tab 7.0 Plus became available Nov. 13.

Two tablets well-positioned to erode iPad’s share are the Amazon Kindle Fire and B&N Nook Tablet because of their brand names and opening prices that fall well below the $499 opening price of a 9.7-inch Wi-Fi iPad, according to a consumer survey commissioned by Retrevo.com, the consumer electronics review and shopping site.

The survey found that more consumers are interested in buying a $199 7-inch Kindle Fire rather than a more expensive 9.7-inch iPad during the holiday season.

“Conditions seem right for the Amazon Fire to become a hot item this year,” said Retrevo. Although the study didn’t ask about the B&N Nook Tablet, the Nook Tablet “could also be an attractive alternative to an iPad,” Retrevo added.

Retrevo surveyed more than 1,000 online consumers and found that 22 percent of all respondents plan to buy a tablet during the holidays. Twelve percent of all respondents said they would buy a Kindle Fire during the holidays, whereas 10 percent of all respondents said they would buy an iPad.

Among people who already own a tablet, purchase intent also skews toward the Kindle Fire. Twenty-seven percent of current tablet owners said they would buy a Kindle Fire during the holidays, and 20 percent of tablet owners said they would buy an iPad.

Two-tablet households are on the rise, Retrevo noted, citing survey results showing that more than 27 percent of iPad 2 owners own another tablet.