iPad 2 Makes Motorola Slash Xoom Price

When Apple released the second iteration of iPad, it made many of its competitor re-consider their tablet plans. After all, Apple successfully managed to cram plenty of new features in its iPad 2, while still maintaining the price. Some companies responded by downsizing their tablet ambitions, whereas Flagship Honeycomb tablet resorted to price curtailment. Just a couple of days ahead of its UK launch, Motorola dropped the price of Xoom 32 GB Wi-Fi to £479.99, down from £499.99. The price adjustment has brought Xoom in line with comparable iPad 2.

Although, the price adjustment may be partly due to iPad 2, but the recent launch of various Android tablets may too have forced Motorola to re-think its pricing strategy. 2011 is likely to see an avalanche of Android tablets, and Motorola may not be able to monetize its flagship Honeycomb tablet status for a long time. Also the new tablets such as Asus Eee Pad series are also more competitively priced.  Asus recently announced the launch date and price for its Eee Pad Transformer tablet. The tablet, due to launch on April 6, has been priced at £429 for 32 GB Wi-Fi only model.

Earlier, Motorola tried to justify its premium pricing by quoting its superior specs over iPad. However, with the launch of iPad 2 and Eee Pad Transformer, Motorola has lost that edge too. With Tegra 2 dual core processor and HD streaming facility, Transformer sure packs some killer features.

Contrary to what experts may claim, tablets have yet to go a long way to compete with notebooks. No one expects tablets to match the computing power of notebook or PCs. But with around $800 price tag, Motorola made the mistake of launching its tablet with Notebook-esque price. And if all this was not bad enough, Xoom also failed to garner positive reviews. The tablet was panned by various experts. Xoom was expected to bring Motorola out of the abyss of oblivion, but seems like the gamble is not paying off. In such circumstances, price cut seems to be the only way out for Motorola. Xoom is certainly a good tablet and packs many features and now the latest price cut has made it even more enticing.