Depending on who you believed, the Samsung Galaxy Tab would be priced competively to compete with the iPad or would have come in a lot more expensive.
As soon as Samsung unveiled the tablet at the IFA Conference in Berlin, UK retailers immediately set about making the Galaxy Tab available for pre-order, pricing the device as high at £799 which lead us to speculate if the device would be priced out of the market.
It’s taken about a month to finally come to light but we now know of an official price for the Samsung Galaxy Tab…and it’s not pretty. Pocket-lint spoke with representatives from the DSG Group (owners of the popular retail stores Dixons, Currys and PC World) who gestured that the RRP for the contract free Galaxy Tab would be £599.99, a price that weighs in at £70 more than the equivalent Apple iPad 3G model.
This will come as a shock for those who were hoping the Galaxy Tab would be priced to undercut the iPad, presenting another solid reason to choose the Samsung tablet-slash-phone over the bigger and cellular limited Apple device.
Samsung purists will argue that the device will sell due to the fact it will be subsidised by carrier contracts, we won’t argue as its a plan that has worked well for similar devices in the market and one that Apple does not currently offer.
Consumers are readily signing up for additional contracts to avoid (in this case) a large upfront cost and pay off the device over a period of two years but most consumers will also have a similar tariff for their smartphone devices. Details of carrier pricing plans are scarce but we assume the contracts will start at around the £30 p/m mark. Coupled with an existing Android or iPhone tariff, will customers be willing to sign up for yet another contract?
Samsung will hope they will, we aren’t sure. The electronics giant has time on its side, Christmas will certainly be the yard-stick for the 7-inch tablet.
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