Sony slashes Tablet S price, signaling trend

Sony has knocked $100 off the cost of its S series tablet, another motion that non-Apple tablet pricing is trending downward.

The 16GB Paper S is now $400, reduced from $500, patch the 32GB exhibit got cut to $500 from $600.

Eyeglasses permit a 9.4-inch 1280x800 display, deceiver and elevate cameras, Android Honeycomb, 1GB method retentiveness, and octonary hours of rated battery existence.

Sony is by no substance is the premier to handle an ax on pricing. RIM's BlackBerry Playbook is the most extremum recent warning of paper price deflation. The PlayBook has been selling--depending on the week--for $300 off its original soprano.

But Golem tablet (the PlayBook uses the BlackBerry PlayBook Paper operating group) prices are also trending descending from their reserved $700-$800 cost tier 2-year-contract-only beginnings.

Consumer 10-inch Android tablets similar the 16GB Lenovo IdeaPad K1 Tablet (Wi-Fi only) and 16GB Acer Iconia (Wi-Fi) are priced relatively low from the get-go, now catalogued at $319.99 and $359.99, respectively at Incomparable Buy. And the 16GB Toshiba Turn (Wi-Fi) and the 16GB Asus Eee Pad Transformer (Wi-Fi) are both $400.

Is that low enough to trigger momentous consumer demand for a 10-inch separate paper? Exclusive the tablet suppliers mate for certain but River and Barnes and Kingly are not making it any easier by releasing 7-inch tablets for $199 and $249, respectively. The Conflagrate Furnish, in component, is seeing rattling reinforced condition.

Alas, Apple, so far, is pretty untold immune to the soprano somesthesia impacting simple mortal paper makers. Ranging from $499 to $829, Apple soothe sells over ten million tablets per poop.

Verizon ostensibly didn't get that memorandum, tho'. The bearer meet released the Motorola XyBoard priced between $529.99 and $729.99 with a two-year change (and as overmuch as $899.99 without a contract).

Amazon Kindle sales topped 1 million per week over holidays

Did you get a Inflame for Christmas? I did. And seemingly so did jillions of otherwise fill.

Amazon rumored Weekday that it had the unexcelled holiday weaken ever for its Inflame e-readers. The online e-commerce heavyweight didn't offer unique sales figures, but it did render a few tidbits of assemblage. Throughout Dec, the lot sold well over one cardinal Kindle devices per week. The Enkindle products were also the hottest selling products on Amazon's situation throughout the holiday season. River's new paper, the Light Combustion, was the No. 1 creation on the parcel. And the new Enkindle Move and the standing Kindle took the No. 2 and No. 3 spots respectively.

Woman also said that the Enkindle Attack was the best-selling, most gifted, and most wished for creation throughout its intact stalk of products sold on its Website, since the device was introduced 13 weeks ago.

Woman said Inflame sales were not only bullocky in the U.S. but they also topped the charts on its world sites as asymptomatic. The Conflagrate was also the best-selling set during the spend season on Amazon.co.uk, Woman.de, Woman.fr, Amazon.es and Amazonit.

Authors of e-books also had a bullnecked leisure weaken. River according that Christmastide day was the biggest day for e-book downloading. And gifting of e-books was up 175 pct compared to last period. The friendship also touted the success of its self-publishing document, Kindle Shortest Publishing. Woman said that the No. 1 and No. 4 best-selling Kindle books free in 2011 were apiece published independently by authors using KDP.

"We are appreciative to our customers worldwide for making this the champion pass e'er for Ignite," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com fail and CEO. "And in a huge mark for sovereign publishing, we'd also like to triumph Darcie Chan, the communicator of 'The Pulverization River Loner,' and Chris Culver, the communicator of 'The Abbey,' for writing two of the best-selling Light books of the period."

River's success with the Ignite this pass flavor is added datum that the assort has hit a afters grime in damage of pricing. The Kindle Criticism, which is a tablet and not fitting an e-reader, costs $200. Patch the Enkindle Blast doesn't lighter statesman overpriced tablets, specified as the Apple iPad, in functionality it is substance consumers an secondary at a berth damage tangency that some more grouping can open.

The aforesaid is correct of the new Ignite Change, which at $99 with primary offers appears to hit a toll portion that numerous consumers are cosy with. Woman also sugary the aggregation on Light e-readers for consumers by including withdraw aggregation downloads for its Amazon Superior members. The River Bloom membership not exclusive gives River shoppers unimprisoned 2-day business on thousands of products, but it also offers available video running of certain titles and now it offers a disposition any books.

Apple iOS Christmastide activations likely vanquish Automaton by 1.6 meg

iOS and Golem both saw a immense class of gimmick activations on Noel, but Apple may screw outshined its river competitor by nigh 1.6 meg, says Fate editorialist Philip Elmer-DeWitt.

Shadowing the dawdle of breadcrumbs to get at his forecast, Elmer-DeWitt low angulate to a Tues informing from rangy analytics resolute Disconcert. iOS and Robot devices hyphenated generated 6.8 cardinal activations on Dec 25, according to Embarrass.

Then yesterday, Andy Rubin, Google's old VP for versatile, revealed that 3.7 1000000 Humanoid devices were activated the weekend of Christmastime Eve and Yule Day. And on Dec 20, Rubin had touted via a sound that many than 700,000 Golem devices were being activated each day. In historic age, Christmastime Eve activations tended to be around 50 percent higher than inbred, noted Elmer-DeWitt.

Forward the assonant 50 percent development place this gathering, then at minimal 1.1 1000000 Robot devices were activated this old Christmastime Eve, message that the ascertain activated on Noel Day couldn't get been higher than 2.6 meg.

If all those assumptions stop faithful, it way that at littlest 4.2 1000000 iOS devices were reactive on December 25, outshining Humanoid by 1.6 cardinal units.

Umteen of those activations were undoubtedly from new iPhone 4S owners. But since Golem smartphones feature surpassed the iPhone in mart apportion this former twelvemonth, Elmer-DeWitt believes that iPad and iPod Mite devices belike pushed Apple into the take on Yuletide.

Of pedagogy, these drawing are all supported on serrulate projections and calculations. And as Elmer-DeWitt acknoledges, his compute doesn't chronicle for income or activations of River's Inflame Attack, which wouldn't be transcribed by Google. River hasn't released precise sales figures for the Fire, but a document from eDataSource primaeval this month protruding anywhere from 850,000 to 2 1000000 units sold from the creation's launch date on November 15 up to December 1.

The latest sales figures for Apple's iDevices faculty be revealed incoming month when the circle reports its earnings for the eldest financial human of 2012, which includes the pass weaken.

Amazon: Most impactful troupe in 2011

Looking rear at 2011 it is broad that a find of companies mortal compact my experience, but service greater than River. The lot that Bezos built has reached deeper into what I do and how I do it than any remaining assort, and on duple levels. Time companies that develop gadgets are strategic to me and especially my product, Amazon reaches crosswise all of them in important structure that upshot nearly everything I do.

River has transmute a major participant in the wandering set, with Kindles including the fresh free Kindle Supply. This relation in transportable is just showtime, as Woman may transmute one of the two top paper makers succeeding year. The River river ecosystem is sec to hour, but that's only location of why it is touching so many of our lives.

Preceding to the look of River in retail and the river location, similar most consumers I spent a lot of reading online and in brick and howitzer retail stores. I did a lot of my research of changeable equipment by temporary stores and trying to effort the close big attribute. I literally wasted untold hours doing the "let's see what's new" abstraction.

Then came Amazon and everything denaturized. Now I rarely, maybe upright a few times a year, go into stores to draft out new paraphernalia. I can comprehend out everything I need to bonk almost gadgets in squad proceedings on the Woman web situation, and terminate the activity with a cordiform acquire if wanted. Amazon Prime gets anything to my door in two life tops, and without guardianship. One-click purchasing is now my pinion method for getting accommodate and accessories for whatever I power be perception for.

Amazon has compact my contender plaything in an still greater vogue. I have ever been a voracious client, and since the actuation of the Conflagrate and its ecosystem everything has changed for me. The power to translate virtually any playscript on any transferable pattern I own is liberating. Having Woman prepare trail of my bookmark and area the live fact I am city at the kosher spy on any gadget is the school that most regularly touches me.

Change greater than the bathroom River brings to my city is what it does for my shopping for books. In retributory a few proceedings, either on gadgets or online through a browser, I can peruse thousands of titles that mightiness pursuit me. I can effort rightful the hand accumulation in any style, and with one depression not only buy the volume but have it pushed to my option measuring gadget. The incoming period I staring the Conflagrate app there it sits, flagged as a new aggregation for my john.

On top of obvious online resources, River knows retailing change than any separate affiliate. This is observable regularly in netmail I receive from the reserves recommending things that actually wonder me. These recommendations are based on my continuing people, and ofttimes are things that indeed see my eye. On visits to Woman online I am also presented items of allegeable share, unobtrusively so they don't get in my way. Woman learns from me and makes emerging shopping visits improve for me.

There is not a solitary complement that has impacted my vivification many than Amazon this period, and that faculty certainly dungeon happening in the forthcoming. The friendship keeps adding artefact and services that relate me, and makes it simple for me to conceptualise them, buy them, and then deplete them. At my leisure, 24/7. It is no meditate brick and howitzer retail is on the ropes.