And now the Android tablet world is being struck with another hurdle. Yes, the new iPad is all nice and shiny with its Retina Display, but the iPad 2 is sticking around and it’s getting a price cut. The 16Gb Wi-Fi model is now going to sell for just $399, making it the same price as a reduced price Sony Tablet S and making it cheaper than many Android tablets.

That’s gotta sting. For the average consumer, when they are faced with choosing between a $399 iPad 2 and a $399 Motorola Xoom, you know they’re going to lean toward the Apple side of the table. Remember that this is an entirely different proposition than the $199 Kindle Fire, but the upcoming Nexus Tablet, if it does indeed launch at $199 with Tegra 3 and ICS, could upset the balance again. For the time being, though, it looks like Apple will continue to gobble up the lion’s share of the market, even if it didn’t have to change things all over again, again.

[source]

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Best Buy eventually put up signs saying this price drop was an error and they won’t honor the reduced price. They’ll gladly sell you a Flyer at the full $299 price, of course, but that’s not at all the smoking $99 deal that we all want. Even so, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to find someone at your local Best Buy that will honor it… or perhaps a lawyer.

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Unfortunately, just about everyone is out of stock. I tried calling around to a few different stores last night — Best Buy, Future Shop, The Source — and they all had the same response: we’re out of stock. I even tried to do the clever thing and get a price match done at Staples, which was still listing the TouchPad at its already reduced $399.99 price point, and get 10% of the difference… but I was clearly not the only one to come up with that hare-brained scheme.

Even if you’re willing to bump up to the 32GB model, which has been universally slashed down to $149.99 from $499.99, you’re still going to have a really hard time finding one in stock. People had absolutely no interest in the TouchPad when its price was on par with other tablets, but now they can’t stock enough of them at this ridiculously low price.

And I can’t blame the consumers, really. The TouchPad is still a decent device, webOS is great (even if it may not get the full HP support), and this price is unbelievable. Some stores even have webOS phones like the Veer and Pre3 at bargain bin prices. Good luck hunting down a cheap TouchPad, but there you have it. Now that webOS has a larger established user base, maybe HP’d be interested in licensing it out to other companies?

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The entry-level HP TouchPad can now be had for just $399, rather than the $499 price point that it had at time of launch. This gets you the 16GB model. If you want 32GB, you’ll need to toss in an extra $100. In terms of price, this puts the TouchPad ahead of the Motorola Xoom, Galaxy Tab 10.1, and iPad, but just on par with the Asus Eee Pad Transformer (sans keyboard dock).

Remember that Acer also cut the price on its entry-level Iconia Tab down to $395 earlier this month, so it seems that the sub-$400 range is the current sweet spot. That’s cheaper than most of the newer (unlocked and unsubsidized) smartphones out there. I know there are a few options in the $299 range, but until these big players get down there, I’m thinking $399 is where it’s at for the next little while.

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If you’re an avid reader of sites like Mobile Magazine, there’s a good chance that you prefer to be on the bleeding edge of technology. If you’re getting an Android phone, you want it to have the latest release from Google, right? And so, are you even the least bit interested in a price drop on the PSP?

Granted, it’s not realy the original PSP-1000, but it may as well be. It’s not even the PSP Go (that not too many care about either). Even so, Sony wants to clear out a bunch of its old stock, so the regular old PlayStation Portable is getting slashed by forty bucks, bringing the sticker price down to just $129.99. That’s starting this Sunday.

At the same time, I guess we have to realize that the PSP2 (NGP) probably won’t be hitting store shelves for a while yet, so at least you have a few months to twiddle around with the single analog stick-equipped PSP for now. And at least Sony is doing something about pricing. Nintendo seems to be mostly holding firm on its DS Lite, DSi, and DSi XL pricing leading up to the launch of the Nintendo 3DS next month.

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If you make your way over to your local Best Buy Mobile location, you’ll learn that Dell’s smartphone-cum-tablet is currently selling for $99.99 with a qualifying two-year AT&T service contract. That’s actually a really good deal for something like this, assuming that you can shoehorn the five-inch handheld into your jeans pocket.

As a bit of a Debbie Downer, the Streak is still shipping with the rather dated Android 1.6 Donut, but the Android 2.2 Froyo update is being planned for release some time in January. That’s not terribly long to wait, is it?

Running through the quick spec sheet, we find a 5MP camera, VGA front-facing cam, microSD slot, and 16GB internal memory. And that big screen. You can’t forget about the big screen.

[BGR]

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I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news for all the iFans in the audience. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, the good news is that you can now waltz into an Apple Store and walk away with a brand new iPhone for just $49. The bad news is that it’s not the iPhone 4.

Starting this week, Telus Mobility is offering the Apple iPhone 3GS 8GB Black for just $49.00, representing a $50 savings over the price you would have paid for the same device just yesterday. This makes Telus the first Canadian wireless provider to sell the iPhone 3GS at the sub-$50 price point.

Naturally, the usual hoops and obstacles apply to get at this price. You will need to sign on a new three-year voice and data agreement with Telus. The iPhone 3GS you receive will also come locked to the Telus network as well (though you can always go and unlock it yourself after the fact). Whether you buy the iPhone 3GS 8GB directly from Telus or via the Apple Store, the same $49 price point applies. Alternatively, you can buy the phone outright for $549.00. Whatever the case, it’ll come preloaded with iOS 4.0 or 4.0.1 which is safe for the 3GS, but we know of 3G users who have had trouble with the upgrade up to this point.

[Telus via iPhoneinCanada]

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Motorola Milestone drops $50 on Telus Mobility

Want to get the hottest new hardware from Telus Mobility but find that the price is a little too rich for your blood? Well, it seems that you’re in luck. Telus has decided to drop the price on the Motorola Milestone by a cool fifty bucks. That ought to cover at least a portion of your first monthly bill, right?

As you might recall, the Motorola Milestone is powered by Google Android, comes with a huge capacitive touchscreen, and features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Naturally, the usual suite of Google-fueled goodness can be found within as well.

The fifty dollar drop brings the asking price down to just $149.99 for the Motorola Milestone, assuming that you sign a new three-year service agreement with a qualifying voice and data plan. If you go for any other kind of contract, the pricing remains the same: $500 on a two-year, $550 on one-year, and $600 outright.

To make the purchase a little more appealing, Telus is also offering a free car mount for the Milestone until the end of the month. That makes it easier to use the GPS navigation features of the smartphone. Buy before the end of March to take advantage of this bonus offer.

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Orange France has to compete with other French carriers, since it does not hold the exclusive rights to the iPhone in the land of the Eiffel Tower, so asking for less money is one way to entice customers their way.

Prices have been slashed across the board. Orange is selling the 16GB iPhone 3GS for 59 Euro ($48), which is down substantially for the original 149 Euro ($213) asking price. The 8GB iPhone 3G is now 19 Euro ($27) and the iPhone 3GS 32GB is 169 Euro ($242). These prices are with contract, of course.

This is probably a smart move one way or the other. We’re fully expecting some sort of new iPhone model next year, so you may as well try to sell as many of the current model in anticipation of luring customers into an upgrade a few months later.

Source: BGR

The post Apple iPhone Becomes Yesterday’s News in Europe? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Starting with the iPod touch, we find that the 8GB model is dropping down from its current $229 price. The screenshot taken before the press event says that it’ll be $189, but I have just learned that the 8-gigger will sell for $229.

Again looking at the screenshot, we see that the 16GB iPod touch will be $249 (down from $299) and the 32GB model will be $279 (down substantially from $399), but I’ve also just learned that these are being pushed a bit too. The 16GB model isn’t mentioned in the event, since it is getting doubled to 32GB for $299. The current 32GB model gets doubled too, getting 64GB for $399. They also say that the 32GB and 64GB models will be up to 50% faster.

On the iPod nano side, the 8GB dropped $20 to $129 and the 16GB dropped $40 to $189. Could this be the new price for the potentially camera-touting new model? We’ll be finding out in the next hour or so!

Source: iPhoneinCanada

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