It was announced today that Verizon will begin selling the Samsung Galaxy Tab Android tablet from Nov. 11th, but the shocking portion of the announcement had to be the pricing. Even though you will be able to get a data plan with the company starting at $20 a month for 1 GB, there will be no subsidy support for the device, meaning it will sell for $599.99 at the Verizon stores.
“This is an incredible time in mobile technology, and as a company we’re excited to add the Samsung Galaxy Tab to our portfolio,” said Marni Walden, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. “The Samsung Galaxy Tab brings together the reliability of Verizon Wireless’ 3G network and the power of Android 2.2 to deliver on our promise of providing consumers and business customers with a host of options to help manage their lives.”
While we’re sure Verizon is indeed excited about adding this product to their growing line of devices, we have to wonder what in the world they were thinking with this pricing. With the news that the company will begin carrying Apple’s iPad also, which will also be sold without subsidy, it’s going to be a hard road the Galaxy Tab when it’s sitting right next to its biggest competition. Despite the fact that the Tab has a leg up on the iPad in some areas (coughFlashcough), people are going to see a bigger screen and the Apple name and immediately gravitate to the the current market leading tablet.
There is also the issue that even if people are interested in the Tab, this is still a tablet running Android 2.2 Froyo, a system that Google itself has said is not ready for tablet devices. Why companies are insisting on ignoring this information from the company behind the software is beyond us, but it’s happening any way. Would it have killed them to have waited for Android 3.0 Honeycomb?
With the pricing of the Tab, we just don’t feel this device is going to have nearly the shot at life it would have had with a subsidized price. This tablet had a lot going for it, despite the Android version issue, but the pricing has probably just sunk it to being a footnote in the history of Tablet devices.
What say you? Still interested in the Galaxy Tab?
