Poll: Price, Not Honeycomb, Is the Key to Android Tablet Success

Okay, we get it, you guys care about price_ Affordable tablets came out as the number one thing your list for creating a successful Android-based tablet. At least that's how I read the results of our informal poll. In it we asked voters which of seven factors is the most important ingredient to future Android tablet success.

We decided to run the poll after reading the results of a similar survey from the IDC. The market research firm queried over 1,500 developers who also put Price first and, oddly, Honeycomb, the made-for-tablet Android OS, a somewhat distant third. Since those results seemed a tad skewed to us, we ran our own online poll and asked all of you to weigh in.

41% of the over 2,000 votes cast in our poll were, again, for Price, but Honeycomb was a strong second, with nearly 25% saying Android 3.0 (AKA Honeycomb) could be the deciding factor in Android's success as a tablet platform. This made more sense, to me at least. I've seen Honeycomb in person and it's significantly different than Android 2.2 and Android 2.3, and clearly designed for the larger tablet interface.

So do consumers really prize price over all else? I really don't think so. What they do want is the perfect price/utility quotient. Consumers are willing to pay "what it's worth." If the perception is that a tablet is worth $200, they'll pay that. It they understand the value as over $500, they're willing to pay that. Perhaps this category is simply too new and single-sourced for consumers to truly understand the value of the tablet and how each of the factors we asked about figures into overall tablet quality and value. Apple's iPad starts as low as $499, but the full-featured model will cost over $800. The Samsung Galaxy Tab costs between $399 and $599. The iPad isn't that much more expensive than the Tab, yet some perceive it as far more expensive. Consumers who have not experienced an iPad, or any tablet for that matter, and the ecosystem s surrounding them, may not have a clear picture of the true value of any tablet. In my opinion, a tablet-designed interface (as iOS 4.2 and Honeycomb both are) is of immeasurable value when it comes to using a device that is, in fact, far more than a casual purchase.

Why take just one pundit's word? I asked some of the leading minds at PCMag.com to evaluate our results. For the most part, our experts think consumers don't really want super-low-priced tablets.

Tablet and Audio Analyst Tim Gideon:

Honeycomb will have less of an impact on all Android tablets than people may believe. I think it will only be a huge advantage for those manufacturers that get support from Google. The Motorola Xoom will likely do well, but don't expect random Honeycomb tablets to succeed just because they are cheap—people may buy them, but they will likely regret their decisions in many of these cases. Without Google's support, Honeycomb will likely feel similar to 2.2 without Google's support. As far as price…we'll see. People say one thing and do another. iPods were never the cheapest options on the market, and the competition, regardless of how it was priced, eventually faded away. I think similar things will happen here. You'll have a small handful of Android tablets that will stand out and a bunch that won't be around a year from now.

News Director Pete Pachal:

The other side of the equation – that New Apps and New App Stores scored so low – is a bit of a surprise. My theory: once an App Store/Market/Shack reaches a certain critical mass (say, about 10,000 apps) the size of the store, and specifically what apps are in it, become irrelevant to a purchase decision. With so many apps, a customer can be comfortably certain that the store will have apps that will suit his needs. I've also never seen the label "Exclusively on the iPad" on any app worth downloading (The Daily may change that, however). Apps matter, but for iOS and Android, the bench is already deep enough.

Mobile Analyst Sascha Segan:

It's pretty obvious what an Android tablet really needs to succeed: an equal or better experience to the iPad, at an equal or less price. Results from our recent online poll underscore that, and hopefully will bring the flood of crappy, low-end tablets based on inadequate software to a screeching halt.

Of course, you might not think that, looking at the poll results at first. 41% of those polled said "price" was their number-one most important factor for Android tablets' success. That perplexed us around the PC Labs, because we've seen $200 tablets, and they're hideous. They're painful. You don't want one, and people aren't buying them.

But just like the old party game where you add "in bed" to the ends of sentences, it helps to add "compared to the iPad" to the end of any statement about the tablet market, where up until now the iPad has had close to 100% market share. People don't really want $200 tablets – they want tablets that cost a little less than the iPad, rather than these absurd $700 numbers we've heard bandied about for the Motorola XOOM.

41% of our respondents may want "price," but most of the rest want a combination of "better hardware," "Honeycomb OS," and "minimized fragmentation," all of which add up, in English, to "a reprieve from the unfortunate, non-tablet-centric Android 2.2 experience on tablets."

Think about it: Not a single one of the 21% of people who voted for "Honeycomb" has actually used Honeycomb. Not a single one of those has actually read a review of a Honeycomb product, because there are no Honeycomb tablets yet. What people know is that the "big smartphone" experience of 2.2 isn't good enough, and they want something better.

What does all of this add up to? Common sense. Android vendors have to undercut the leader on price while significantly ramping up the quality of their experience. The Samsung Galaxy Tab didn't quite do it. It's obvious that the Motorola Xoom will be rejected if it's too expensive. Who's going to solve this equation?

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