With the Xoom now officially six months old, a major price drop is likely in the works. Various European tech blogs are reporting sales and/or price drops regarding the first Honeycomb tab. Register Hardware points to Dixons, a popular UK retailer, who is now selling the 32GB Xoom for £329 rather than £500. Blogeee goes as far to say that Motorola will officially cut the price down to £399. As they note, this would place the 32GB model at the same price point as competitor’s 16GB model. Smart, but a tad late.
Retailers in the US, namely Amazon and Best Buy, recently cut the Xoom’s price as well but not as drastic. Amazon lists the 32GB version for $449 while Best Buy has it at $499, which while decent prices, are nothing to skip the first day of school over. Motorola surely knows how to make the Xoom a blockbuster: do an HP and cut it to $99.
The European price cut is right on cue. The Xoom is now six months old and with the holiday season approaching, retailers, distributors and even manufacturers are likely looking to clear some room in their respective warehouses. The Xoom, while receiving a fair amount of pre-launch hype, hit the ground running but then fizzled out as consumers and reviewers found that Honeycomb was half-baked. Here we are a dozen Honeycomb tabs later and the product type is all but generic now, with all Honeycomb tabs looking the same save several trivial differences.
Motorola has yet to make the price drops official but they will. They have to. The Xoom’s arbitrary amount of fame was over months ago. Now it’s time to hit the bargain bin and make way for the next generation — which will follow the same timeline to price cuts.