Due to the tablet apparently offering higher quality, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller believes the iPad Mini warrants a higher price tag than its rivals.
Rival 7-inch tablets cost as little as $199, but the iPad Mini will set consumers back $329. However, during an interview with Reuters, Schiller defended the price of the recently unveiled 7.9-inch tablet by saying customers have been shelling out more cash for the 9.7-inch iPad over its competition.
"The iPad is far and away the most successful product in its category. The most affordable product we've made so far was $399 and people were choosing that over those devices," Schiller said. "And now you can get a device that's even more affordable at $329 in this great new form, and I think a lot of customers are going to be very excited about that."
"Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they've failed miserably," Schiller said regarding the iPad Mini's thin and light design. "These are not great experiences."
The iPad Mini least-expensive variant is $329 for the 16GB W-Fi version. Rival 7-inch tablets such as Google's Nexus 7, Amazon's Kindle Fire HD and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.0 sell for $199. While Google's Nexus 7 only comes with 8GB of storage, the Kindle Fire HD sells for the same $199 price and matches the iPad mini's 16GB of storage.
Contact Us for News Tips, Corrections and Feedback
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
-
brushrop03 LoL. What world does this guy live on? You have a more inferior product and price it $130 more?Reply
Now if this thing had the same specs (or even similar) as the iPad 3 (not the one they just announced), I would say sure. But fairly underpowered CPU and Screen that is way lacking? Come on... -
tramit Depends, if that product does what you need it to do and if it brings a little happiness to your short time on this planet. Who are we to judge people by how they spend their own hard earned money. Unless someone on welfare is buying this stuff....Reply -
AsTheDeath In other words: "We know it's overpriced, but people still buy it, so what would you do?"Reply -
bryonhowley And most of the other tablets allow to expand the storage space with SD cards the Ipad does not!Reply -
ddpruitt "Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they've failed miserably,"Reply
Really, has no one clued this man in on the Nexus 7, Kindle Fire, Galaxy Tab....
You know the tablets that Apple is copying. -
arcticfury Sounds like a repugnant politically correct defense for a high price; Apple has to maintain its image as a status-symbol product.Reply
Too bad the crazy profit margin is unusable since Apple files their profits away overseas. -
classzero I was excited over the iPad mini but at 329 I don't think so. For a measly 70 I can get the full iPad. So it looks like Nexus 7 and full size iPad. I may not get the nexus and wait to see what microsoft offers. I have two android devices that are just Meh.Reply -
Markon101 It doesn't have a GPS, it has a lower resolution screen than the nexus 7, and it costs more. (Not to mention it's bigger, which may be an up for some people; but not me.)Reply -
brushrop03 tramitDepends, if that product does what you need it to do and if it brings a little happiness to your short time on this planet. Who are we to judge people by how they spend their own hard earned money. Unless someone on welfare is buying this stuff....True. But I still feel it's overpriced when you compare it to the regular iPad.Reply