Retail

Best Buy tablet will retail for $250 - report

Best Buy tablet will retail for $250 - report

Thu 18 Oct 2012 8:18am GMT / 4:18am EDT / 1:18am PDT
RetailHardware

Retail giant's new device will be the cheapest 10-inch tablet on the market

Best Buy

With operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, China and Mexico, Best Buy is a multinational retailer...

bestbuy.com

The US retail giant Best Buy will be the latest company to enter the increasingly competitive tablet market.

According to a report on Reuters, which cites "a source familiar with the matter," the new Android-based tablet, "Insignia Flex", will retail for between $239 to $259. That price-point will put the device in direct competition with the Kindle Fire HD, Google's Nexus 7 and, if advance reports are accurate, the forthcoming iPad Mini.

A post on Best Buy's Facebook page indicates that the device will ship with a 1GHz processor, 10-hour battery life and a 9.7-inch screen - a crucial advantage over its competitors, whose devices at that price have 7-inch screens.

According to the source, the launch of the Insignia Flex will not influence Best Buy's decision to carry rival brands.

5 Comments

Cale Barnett
Animator

It's my understanding that just previous to the videogame crash in '83, large department stores were producing and selling their own home consoles, such as Sears and Tandy, among others.
With everyone scrambling to get a slice of the tablet market, including non-tech-specific companies like Best Buy, could we see a similar
issue arise?
The market is flooded as it is, both hardware and software -wise.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Cale Barnett on 18th October 2012 9:55am

Posted:7 months ago

#1

Fyzard Brown
Sales Associate

VideoGameAdvantage

To be hones the only one flooding the tablet market is the Android brand, since it can be put out by anyone. Have you seen the Coby tablets that the community colleges in NJ give to the students? Very saturated and fragmented between all the different versions of Android.

Posted:7 months ago

#2

Nicholas Pantazis
Senior Editor

VGChartz Ltd

@ Fyzard it's basically a repeat of Windows. This is what happens when you have an operating system available to multiple manufacturers, and as Android continues to gain ground with more manufacturers competing for better price points consumers will continue to move toward it, and Apple's market share will continue to shrink. Welcome to the 90s! This is exactly what marginalized Macs, and it's happening all over again.

Posted:7 months ago

#3

Paul Jace
Merchandiser

Now thats how you put out a brand new product with competitive aggresive price points. Rather it will be any good is another story entirely but atleast it's priced relatively cheap.

Posted:7 months ago

#4

Greg Wilcox
Creator, Destroy All Fanboys!

Hmmm... at this point, we'll see a McDonald's tablet, a Starbucks tablet, a Walgreens tablet and so forth and so on.

I bet Apple isn't planning to take all this sitting down, but we'll see what happens after the new iPad Mini potentially tanks because of that lower resolution screen and Apple realizing it needs to move forward when designing a product, not pull a back-step and hope those who aren't yet converted will just glaze over and whip out their wallets.

We shall see, as always...

Posted:7 months ago

#5

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