The BlackBerry PlayBook is Now Officially $199
Tis the season for affordable tablets.
It looks like Amazon has set the tablet market afire with its latest Kindle offering. Since the Kindle Fire is based heavily on the BlackBerry PlayBook's design, Amazon's $200 price tag would certainly make any potential RIM customer question about spending a penny more. Thankfully, they won't need to ask any questions – at least not for a "limited time."
Research in Motion today officially confirmed on its Twitter account, of all places, that the BlackBerry PlayBook's new price now starts at $199.
Customers in RIM's homeland of Canada have been enjoying the new sub-$200 price since last week, but today's announcement makes it official across the board and includes the United States.
RIM clearly states that this a "limited time" offer, but we don't see how the price can go back up any higher after this sale. It could be a sales tactic, but in any case, if there was any time to buy a PlayBook, this is it.
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It will be interesting to see how peoples bias plays into account with kindle vs playbook sales seeing as they are so related.
Bought 2. Playbook has 16 GB instead of Fire's 8.
Selling them at an obvious loss wow, and in most places in canada they have not been selling for 199 I've checked. Must be a only a few retailers.
You'd have to be a die hard Amazon fan to pick up the Fire now. Playbook has twice the RAM, twice the flash memory, HDMI, bluetooth, GPS, and the smoothest interface outside of iPad.
@spentshells - It was a few retailers, and they subsequently sold out after a day. I was able to acquire one through Bell Canada's website.
Finally time to pick one up I think.
16 GB was sold out in Toronto an our after stores opened their doors. Staples took preorders for Playbooks that were in their warehouses (you had to pay the full price upfront), for a few more hours.
But people were buying only the 16GB version. I guess $300 for the 32GB version is too expensive. If they made it $250, it would fly off the shelves in an hour.
A few retailers? Almost all major stores (WalMart/Staples/FutureShop/BestBuy/TSCC/Sears/Bell/Chapters/Visions/LondonDrugs etc.) sold the 16GB at $199.
This deal was first reported in RedFlagDeals, and Engadget had a post about it too.
The thread in RFD is up to 284 pages now.
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/mer [...] a-1104350/
dont forget it still leverages the blackberry for a lot of things, so if you dont have blackberry..
still over $200 too much !
I really want this tablet, but only for hardware. If I could load 3.1+ Android on this, I'd so buy it. Hate BB -- for the most part.
why bother? BB is going to support android apps anyway
Just got one at $199. The best deal. I was looking for a good e-reader, as more tech papers publish in pdf format. The Playbook gives much more. Nice GUI, real multitasking OS. QNX exists since over 20 years and they are in the low-latency multitasking business since the start. It shows. There is a Kobo app in here, so there's my reader. A seven-inch screen is about the width of a hardcover book.
Good deal
but I have my touchpad 32GB 
For $199, I think I'd choose the Playbook over Kindle Fire.
And so.... the Tablet price war, HAS BEGUN!!
None of these are as cheap the the $500>$100 HP TouchPad, but that is a dead platform... which has more market share than the PLAYBOOK! At least until this price adjustment of $200.
But yeah, the Playbook and Fire are very similar in size, weight and have the same CPU/GPU. Only difference: Playbook = Camera, 2x memory and GPS.
But IF Amazon is selling theirs at a $2 loss - then the Playbook may cost about $230~240 to make... then RIM is taking a hit.
Unlike Amazon, RIM doesn't have an eco-system... its running Android emulation for some games and appls. We'll know in a few months which one wins.
Now, if Samsung brings their tablets down to $250 / $300 (7" / 9") and it starts selling much better - then WE may see a dent in the iPad market share, which would FORCE Apple to reduce their pricing on iPads. But I wouldn't think Apple would sell the 16GB for less than $400.
Does it sync Exchange email without a BB server yet? Pass...
PlayBook O.S. 2.0 is going to be solid, if promises are delivered. It will have integrated Exchange email, both through BES and OWA, from what i'm reading.
The fact that you actually wrote in this article that you cant see why the price of the PlayBook would go up again really surprises me. Especially since the Android app capabilities and added features with OS 2.0 in a couple of months will finally be here.
As an independent app developer, I can appreciate coding for the BBX platform. In a lot of ways, its actually easier than other platforms. (Gasp!). They working on some crucial things still, though, and many devs will agree with me that its a work in progress, with great progress made so far.
All in all. The article is nice to let people know because it's a great bargain, but Marcus, if you can't see a reason why the PlayBook would go up in value and price in the future, then I would seriously like to know your salary, as I will be coming to take your job as a part time hobby.