The rumors are coming from all angles. Let’s start with the most audacious one: that a forthcoming Google tablet might retail for as low as $149. That comes via a site called Android and Me, which cites a supply chain source calling the tablet “a done deal.” That’s an interesting price, undercutting the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet by 50 bucks. If it were comparable with those two devices in terms of specs, it might be hard for many consumers to justify shelling out for either of the former. (Then again, it’s easy to imagine Amazon slashing its own prices the instant it began to detect real competition; the Kindle Fire becomes a real moneymaker by serving as a portal to Amazon’s own content.)
Android and Me classifies that $149 figure as a “rumor,” however, and I’m not aware of that site getting other big scoops in the past. It will be interesting to see if the site’s claims are borne out. CNET’s Brooke Crothers, a smart fellow when it comes to hardware, deems the rumor credible enough or at least compelling enough to reference in a recent post, as have other tech bloggers of repute.
The waters are a bit murky here. The rumor mill began to whir earlier this month, as it often does, with a report from DigiTimes. DigiTimes said that Google and Asus would be teaming up to reveal a 7-inch tablet in May, and it situated pricing in the $199-$249 range. On the 16th, Chris Ziegler of the Verge weighed in with news from his own sources. He said that he was hearing $199, not $149 for the tablet, but he didn’t rule out that perhaps the thing could be available at both price points. It all might come down to whether or not a quad-core Tegra 3 processor will form part of the tablet. An early leak suggested yes; Android and Me is saying no–indicating, perhaps, that possible effort to undercut Kindle Fire pricing.
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