The tablet race has slowly been heating up. Between the Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7 the budget market is a tight one, and it appears like things will only be getting cheaper. We’ve been hearing reports of a few different $99 Android tablets hitting the scene soon, and now the Wall Street Journal has confirmed a few budget Acer Iconia Tabs are coming next year.
Last week some details surfaced about a new Acer B1 tablet looking to take on Google’s Nexus 7, and Barnes & Nobles design and price. Between those impressive pictures and decent specs you’d have a pretty nice tablet. If Acer can truly hit that $99 price point, and offer a good product, they might have a real winner.
The problem here however, is the Wall Street Journal claims Acer’s new budget tablets will mainly be focused in those other budget tablet Chinese markets, and not for the US. Oddly enough that Acer B1 recently was spotted at the FCC, so that is where we have some confusion. Acer might be offering some budget devices stateside, but their main attention will be in China.
Would a $99 tablet with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and a decent little dual-core processor be something you’re interested in? Details confirm a 1024 x 600 resolution like the original Kindle Fire, so they’d certainly be hitting a competitive price point. The report from the WSJ even mentions ASUS has no plans to offer cheap tablets in the US, but we’ve seen multiple leaks suggesting a $99 device is coming soon. Could that also be going overseas too? That would be a bummer. We’ll report back when we hear more details from either party.
I’m sure there is a market for decent (as in, not crappy) low-cost tablets. At this price-point it’ll probably be below the impulse buy threshold for lots of people who couldn’t justify purchasing a tablet so far.
For me personally, the hardware isn’t quite good enough. The Nexus 7 fills my subjective sweet spot re: bang-for-buck perfectly.
couldn’t agree more.