Black Friday is just around the corner, and soon stores and websites across the US are going to be packed with shoppers and deals. Some deals will be better than others, and we must be aware of what exactly we are getting a deal on. HP has a great looking price on an Intel powered tablet this year, that will be wearing an $89 pricetag.
This $89 tablet is called the HP Mesquite, and is a 7 inch tablet, and that price has only been mentioned on Intel’s press release, at Walmart. Details on specs are very few and mostly speculation as of this point.
Some names being thrown around are from within the Atom Chip family, but it is safe to say that at this price, don’t expect the best. In order to launch a tablet at a sub-$100 price, you will have to sacrifice quite a bit is the spec department. A saying from a teacher I once had comes to mind, “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” Which is more commonly known as TANSTAAFL. The saying is from the world of business and essentially it means, that everything is paid for by someone.
In this case, think of the Tablet as a sandwich, the insides of which are common tablet specs. Tomatoes equals camera, lettuce equals speakers etc. Now think of the sandwich as normally costing $699. In order to get that price down to $89, you will need to ditch the tomatoes, add less lettuce and so on, now the sandwich doesn’t taste as great, does it?
Same goes in all aspects of technology, the lower the price, usually means the less you are getting. Unless of course your Google, and making devices is like a hobby more so than an essential money making endeavor. Since HP depends on the majority of their devices released, this means offering google like prices is very difficult, unless of course you dont put as much effort into that device.
However great the price looks to us, we have to keep that in mind when deciding on what devices we get on black Friday. Black Friday, may be better spent getting televisions and accessories rather than tablets and computers. Unless of course, the specs don’t really matter to you, or maybe the tablet is for a younger family member or friend.
If you still are headed to out this black Friday, looking for a tablet, there are some alternatives with slightly better specs but a little less of a deal. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, 16GB version will be going for $299.99 from Toys ‘R’ Us. There are also a lot of tablet deals at Best Buy, so what are you looking for deals on this black Friday? or are you going to wait for Cyber Monday?