Samsung Galaxy Tab is 799€ (unlocked), 1359€ with 2-year 5GB/month service contract

Posted by Charbax – September 11, 2010

I asked T-Mobile and Vodafone at IFA 2010 in Berlin, they both confirmed that their retail price for the Samsung Galaxy Tab when bought without the 2-year 40€/month contract, is going to be 799€. Thus the price is 1359€ with 2-years of 5GB/month contracts at 40€/month including the 200-300€ purchase price for the device. 5GB/month can otherwise also be had for 15€/month in Germany without contracts using Aldi and 20€/month without contract with Tchibo SIM cards.

So by signing up for a 2-year contract for a Samsung Galaxy Tab, the actual cost for the device is higher at 1000€ since 15€ x 24 months only amounts to 360€ and that the 15€/month for 5GB/month with Aldi can actually be stopped at any time as it does not have to be on a contract.

My point? The Samsung Galaxy Tab is really expensive. Samsung really sees an opportunity to make a lot of money for themselves and for their carrier partners by selling this device to as many people as possible. The high price of the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab I think are great opportunities for other players to provide lower cost tablet alternatives to the market.

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  • Uncle Scotty

    40 euros a month? Can you name the people who told you that?

  • http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

    Officials from the IFA 2010 stands of T-Mobile and Vodafone in Germany. Until a couple days before the end of IFA, T-Mobile even had the prices written on an official piece of paper next to the Galaxy Tab demo devices. My guess is Samsung asked them to remove the pricing from the trade show because of the pricing controversy. A Vodafone representative even told me Samsung officially had some press releases saying 799€ unlocked at some point.

  • Jeremy

    I'd pay that price knowing it's from a good company. I wouldn't buy the other cheap tablets (ie. anything Archos). I had an Archos 5 Internet Tablet with the newest firmware (2.0.28) and it was a piece of ****. So buggy. It felt like I bought one of those knock off devices from Asia. A bunch of apps from the Market don't work very well.

    I'd gladly pay extra for a significantly better device. Not all Android devices are made equal.

  • Archos

    99% of the apps in the Google Marketplace don't work 100% perfectly on the Archos tablets.

  • http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

    Samsung is more than 3 times more expensive than the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, and more than 5 times more expensive if you take the contract. Do whatever you want.

    I don't think it's more than 1% of the 100 thousand apps in the Google Marketplace that absolutely need 3G, GPS or Compass to work properly.

  • A5IT User

    99% of the apps in the Google Marketplace do not work 100% on the Archos Tablets.

  • http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

    99% of the apps in Google Marketplace work just fine on Archos tablets.

    Apps that absolutely need 3G, GPS, Compass or front and back facing cameras are a very small minority.

  • Kevin

    I have an A5IT and updated to version 2.0.38 of the firmware. It crashes more often now. I also agree that a lot of apps don't work very well. It's not because of no 3G, compass or camera. Whatever Archos did to their Android build makes it not perfectly run many Android apps.

    UI elements aren't correct sometimes like text behind other elements. Certain functions don't work like pressing and holding the back Android button to get a exit menu, shortcut to history or some other function almost always doesn't work. However Archos implements their software buttons seems to cause problems with a lot of apps. Apps just crashes out of nowhere like trying to run a Flash video in the Skyfire browser returns some error, exits the video and goes back to the web page. Streaming progressive download MP4s doesn't seem to work with AMC and when I used Meridian or some other Android video player to play them they crash when I seek through the video.

    With so many Android devices out there, developers can't make their apps compatible with all of them. The main issue is if the developer is willing to make fixes for your device. I've heard developers needing to make specific fixes for specific devices. Official Google Experience devices are more likely to get fixes from developers. At least that's my experience. I've asked some developers of the apps that don't work at all or well on the A5IT to fix the issues and got back replies that generally said that it wasn't worth looking into since the A5IT wasn't worth effort.

    I have yet found an app from the Google Marketplace that works 100% okay. There is always something wrong.

  • http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

    That is not what users are reporting in http://forum.archosfans.com

    All apps that I have tried work 100% fine for me. Only a few augmented reality things are not working, obviously cause A5IT doesn't have a back facing camera nor compass.

    Augmented reality apps are a small minority.

    It might be that a bunch of apps require Android 2.X to work correctly, but then that is another problem as A5IT is Android 1.6 for now. But the new Archos tablets will be fully graphics accelerated for Android 2.2 support so those apps will then work fine.

    Software buttons are not a problem, it just makes the device more compact, lighter and cheaper.

  • ArchosFans Forum Reader

    Ya, keep denying it. Even your own ArchosFans forum is filled with how the A5IT is buggy and people looking for ways to get their apps (including Archos apps) to work fully. Not get most things working but everything working fully.

    It even seems the members of your forum, including moderators, are getting a little annoyed by your over optimistic views of Archos.