TechnesstivityStaples To Drop Price Of PlayBook To $199 On Black Friday
As revealed by TechCrunch in a leaked Staples ad, it looks like Staples is about to make yet another move to push out more PlayBooks. This is not the first time Staples has had significant discounts on the PlayBook. The office giant, along with BestBuy and Wal-Mart have all offered the PlayBook for $299 before but this marks the steepest price cut yet for the PlayBook. We had put up a post about RIM offering a free PlayBook when you purchase two.
The PlayBook, to the chagrin of many, failed to make a dent in the market; although it was praised for the rock solid QNX operating system it ran. It has been argued that its downfall, or rather failure to rise to the position of “iPad Killer”, was as a result of the half-baked OS that lacked Email and RIM’s default services off the gate. Adding fire to the flame was the recent revelation that Quanta, RIM’s OEM manufacturing the PlayBook, was cutting down its workforce due to the lackluster sale of the device.
This begs the question; Is there a future for RIM in the tablet market and what does this mean to you as a consumer? For starters, Waterloo is not holding back on improving the PlayBook with the newer version (2.0 to be exact) of its QNX OS showcased and slated for an early 2012 release. This update will bring native email support and Android app support. Although not mentioned during their developer conference, screenshots show that BBM might be supported natively also.
The PlayBook packs a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM and storage options of 16GB and 32GB. It’s front-facing camera is 3 megapixel while the rear camera is 5 megapixel. It’s also got video playback of up to 1080P HD. The PlayBook supports Flash, Adobe AIR and HTML along with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1.
In addition to this, RIM’s intention to adopt QNX as its primary smartphone OS should guarantee the longevity of its fledgling platform. In addition to these, we have seen from the success of the $99 HP TouchPad bonanza that larger Tech corporations are willing to support their products as long as there is a significant amount of users out there wielding these devices.
That said, I would suggest you mark a couple of Staples stores near you and plan accordingly. I foresee yet another HP TouchPad type fire rush for these devices. Good luck!
