One day after Amazon rocked the tablet world with the announcement of Kindle Fire, a 7-inch tablet that costs only $199, Best Buy has slashed the price of BlackBerry Playbook by a hefty $200.
The cheapest, 16 GB PlayBook now costs $299; the 32 GB version is $399, while the 64 GB version will set you back $499.
There is little doubt that Amazon's announcement of Fire prompted the price cuts. Granted, the Kindle Fire has half the storage space of the now $299 look-alike Playbook, but most industry watchers have pegged the Fire's combination of price and content access as a winner. At $199, it gives most of the tablets on the market a run for their money.
Furthermore, the fact that HP's soon-to-be-abandoned TouchPad started selling well only after its price fell to $99 and $149 (depending on the model) proved that there is a much bigger market for non-iPad tablets at these price points than at $500 and over, which is how Android tablets are usually priced.