Wintel Tablets Could Cost Up to $900
There are rumors that Microsoft-/Intel-based tablets could be substantially more expensive than Android-/ARM-based versions.
According to information reaching us from Taiwan, Wintel tablets could retail somewhere from $599 to $899 as both Intel and Microsoft allegedly refuse to drop their hardware prices.
$900 for a tablet is a tough one to swallow for consumers and could prevent Microsoft and Intel from competing with Google and ARM effectively. Digitimes suggests that both Microsoft and Intel are caught between a rock and a hard place as they could lower their product prices to gain market share, but they would damage their average product margins and possibly cannibalize some notebook sales with hardware and software that have substantially higher profit margins.
There was no confirmation from Microsoft and Intel that would indicate that their upcoming tablets will, in fact, be as expensive as Digitimes reported. However, it is likely that tablet vendors will find cheaper ARM-based SoCs from Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instrument's much more appealing. In such cases, Microsoft may have still opportunities to pick up partners for Windows 8 on ARM, but Intel could find itself under substantial pressure.
If Intel refuses to drop chip prices, then WinAMD tablets might sell better. The current Windows tablet running on an AMD Brazos CPU by MSI (The Windpad 110W) Can be bought for just $600 US, Which is only $100 more than Android tablets. If AMD can do it ... why can't Intel/MS?
An AMD Brazos Tablet dual Booted with Android and Windows 8 would be awesome ...
Pull it out and take it with me, and it's a tablet with a fantastic screen (1366 x 768), a great HTML5 browser (IE10), and 64GB of storage, not to mention built-in 3G. And it came with a bluetooth keyboard.
Since Samsung sells a Windows 7 version of this (the Series 7 Slate) for about $1000 even, or less with promotions, I'm hoping they can put out a new Ivy Bridge-based version for about the same.
Another key thing is that this is for *Intel* powered tablets. Windows on ARM (WOA) tablets are going to run on the same (lower-power) architecture that runs the iPad, and Galaxy Tab line of tablets (and the new, promising-looking Transformer Prime). So a "true" comparison would be a Windows 8 on ARM tablet to either an iPad or Android tablet. The x86 tablets are capable of running desktop software, and filling in as a laptop, while the ARM tablets are not (at least, not yet).
Yet somehow.. Greed always wins them over.
I mean seriously.. Amazon did good with the Kindle fire and although they make a loss, I would have easily paid $250 for a device like that (well, here anyway). And yes I know they earn back some money on book sales etc..
Aren't they learning anything from companies like that?
Tablets are beginning to gain less and less ground by the day, They are merely an accessory with no particularly different use.
The iPad has made it this far solely because of its novelty and fan-boy attitude of their customer base, Android tablets are picking up a little as a cheaper alternative because of the free OS and the low cost tech designs from the likes of Qualcomm, T.I, Samsung, nVIDIA and a few others.
"Wintel" tablets sacrifice the best thing tablets have going for them so far, They are a low cost device, Increased functionality will help for some customers but not the majority.
Competing with apple over "Value for money" for years has been one of the simplest things in the world, It is just a matter of finding something to overcome their customers fan-boy attitude.
Fighting Apple is one thing but Android tablets are becoming a whole different ball game.
hopefully that's where AMD comes in and the reason they fired their last CEO
That would be awesome! Their low powered CPUs are so much better
You forgot to account for R&D, process node improvements, validation, support, etc., etc..
If you where only to look at the production and packaging costs I agree the processor would be penny cheap.
Unfortunately there is quite a bit of work and investments needed to bring a design to production that still needs to be accounted for.
Nope an Ultrabook would be an I5 or I7 Ivybridge processor with reasonable storage, and a few other pieces of hardware that tablets don't have.
A tablet is an atom processor with 8-32 gbs of storage.
That's no comparison. The gear inside a tablet is not on par with what's in a netbook.
So in this case Intel is just smoking crack. No one is going to buy these things.
You forgot that when your R&D costs HAVE ALREADY BEEN covered by your usual market, you do not have to be an idiot and not lower prices in a new market.
And most people forget that even at the $300 price point, what you get in a tablet is still inferior to what you can get in a really cheap laptop. Tablets are a novelty item at the moment, as very few people have an absolute NEED for them. What can a tablet do that a smartphone can't? Now what's left that a laptop can't do? Very little is left, if anything. By the time you hit $600, a well-informed consumer can usually buy a halfway decent laptop, and at $1,000 they can buy a very powerful laptop capable of replacing a desktop as their everyday machine. It makes no financial sense for most people to even OWN a tablet. Yet here we are in this crazy market...