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In 2008, when the Eee PC was revolutionizing the computing world and driving every manufacturer to make cheaper and smaller laptops, Sony washed its hands of th
by majorlazer 14y ago
In 2008, when the Eee PC was revolutionizing the computing world and driving every manufacturer to make cheaper and smaller laptops, Sony washed its hands of the whole thing. The "race to the bottom," the company said, would profoundly impact the industry, killing profit margins and flooding the market with cheap, terrible machines. Sony was wrong, its stance lasting about a year before joining the competition with its own VAIO W.
I actually disagree with this first paragraph, I think Sony was right. The "race to the bottom" definitely did impact the industry, and for quite some time, no manufacturer even offered a laptop with decent build quality, except for Apple of course. People thought "why should I pay $1,000+ for this laptop when I can get a much cheaper laptop that will do everything I need?" And then the Macbook Air and the iPad come along and all of a sudden, people have no problem paying more for a quality product. If it wasn't for Apple, the OEMs would continue to release shitty machines until they all went bankrupt from negative profit margins.
I don't think the tablet market is experiencing the same race to the bottom because people are not buying these shitty tablets (which the Nexus 7 isn't). Everybody is still buying iPads and will continue to do so until a tablet that can actually compete with the iPad is released. (I have only seen two that even come close, the Galaxy and the Transformer, and still...) I think Apple has proven that consumers are willing to pay more if the product is good. And this is all coming from someone that does not own a single Apple product.
- superskrull 14y agoThe best $200 tablet you can buy is a refurb iPad 1.
- CrazedGeek 14y agoThe cheapest officially refurbished iPad 1 is $379, and you'd be buying a product with no further major software updates (and possible future app incompatibility).
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoSo, like most new Android tablets? ;)
- CrazedGeek 14y agoWell, not really. ICS will be supported for years to come by apps. I can easily see iOS5 being dropped in a year or so for some developers. And the Android tablets are still cheaper. :P
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoAnyone can still develop for iOS 3, which was released several years a go. Also, 10" tablets with comparable features as Apple's iPad are priced the same or higher than the iPad. 7" tablets like the Google/Asus tablet and the Kindle Fire are devices for media consumption, 10" tablets like the iPad are suitable for media creation.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 14y agono manufacturer even offered a laptop with decent build quality, except for Apple of course. Maybe in some alternate universe where Lenovo didn't exist...
- majorlazer 14y agoI am huge ThinkPad fan. That is one exception that I was thinking of mentioning, but really, ThinkPads (NOT Lenovo in general) do not appeal to the average consumer. They are built great, and I have owned a few, but to everyone but the techies, they look like boring/old machines. I actually had a few people tell me that my 2 year old ThinkPad looks like something from the 90s. And the build quality and fit/finish of the new unibody Macbooks are still better than that of the ThinkPads.