BlackBerry PlayBook Seeing Price-Drops at Some Retailers

Like all other companies that sought out to compete against Apple’s iPad, Research In Motion had expected to see its PlayBook tablet fly off of the shelves once it became available. In truth, so did we. The PlayBook brings a fluid UI, brand-new OS, big focus on gestures, a growing app store and unlike most other tablets out there, it supports Adobe’s Flash from the get-go.

In an attempt to see more units get in the hands of customers, it seems that RIM has been working with retailers to drop the prices via instant and mail-in rebates -but don’t expect ‘fire sale’ prices like we saw with HP’s TouchPad. Since the PlayBook is still considered alive and well, this is just a seemingly normal price drop to help with adoption.

I am not sure of the hardware costs of these things, but I think it would have been wise for RIM and others to charge much less than the iPad from the get-go, to give people truly compelling reasons to move on over. It’s hard to complete with a company that was first out the door with their solution, not to mention one that has a million or so apps available in their respective app store.

Nonetheless, some stores have been selling the PlayBook for $200 off, which would put the 16GB model at $300. At that price, or even $400, the tablet would be a relative steal. I just hope this isn’t the start of another ‘fire sale’ because I want to see the PlayBook succeed. The more competition, the better. HP bailed out, so we don’t want others to.