Hasta La Gadget!

Rumors around the iPad mini are understandably reaching a fever pitch now that an announcement seems very likely for October 23, and a new one over the weekend claims to have a full breakdown of iPad mini unit pricing. While it seems unlikely that Apple would release pricing info to retail partners ahead of a new product launch, it isn’t entirely unprecedented. But the real question is, how do the rumored prices stack up with Apple’s famed commitment to high profit margins on device sales?

According to German blog Schimanke, the iPad mini pricing will start at €249 (around $323 U.S.), and come in eight different configurations (16 if you count different colors) ranging in storage capacity from 8GB to 64GB, with both Wi-Fi-only and cellular wireless capabilities, running to €649 ($841 U.S.) at the top end. There’s some debate as to whether this would include VAT or not, the European value added tax on the purchase prices of some goods, is included in those figures. If it is, it would drop the entry-level price of the iPad mini to around $270 U.S.

Given that we’ve seen estimates and rumors putting prices starting between $199 and $349, this seems like a logical enough pricing breakdown for the iPad mini, whether or not we look at these prices as VAT inclusive or not. But looking at the latest iPad’s bill of materials cost, we get a better idea of what kind of margins Apple might enjoy on a smaller tablet, and how that figures with the above pricing details.

The iPad mini reportedly starts at $316.05 for BOM and manufacturing cost per unit, and is sold for $499, giving a rough margin of $182.95. At the top end, the margin jumps considerably, with the $829 64GB Wi-Fi+LTE iPad apparently carrying a manufacturing cost of $408.70, parts included, for a difference of $420.30. For another point of reference, consider that the latest iPod touch probably costs somewhere around $150 to make (an estimate based on the BOM of past iterations), and retails for $299, providing a margin of roughly $150.

Amazon and others may be fine with taking a bath on hardware in order to encourage media content sales, but that’s not how Apple has become the most profitable gadget maker in the world. For it to retail an iPad mini, the numbers would have to be in keeping with its commitment to high margins. So looking at an estimated entry price of around $270 U.S., is that possible?

Display and battery are going to be key factors affecting price, and so there does appear to be room to maneuver the price down relative to the larger newest iPad. Its display and touchscreen together cost an estimated $127; a smaller screen means lowering those costs, and if rumors proven true and we don’t see Retina resolution on this device, that could get costs down even lower. The iPhone 5 has a total display/touchscreen cost of $44 – a non-Retina 7.85-inch screen could then theoretically come in around the $50 mark. Likewise, the latest iPad’s battery is a $32 expenditure, while the iPhone 5′s is around $5, so that’s another place a smaller device with a smaller screen could save precious dollars. Also, the price of NAND flash has dropped significantly from latest iPad to iPhone 5, meaning an iPad mini could pack a 16GB module for around $10 instead of nearly $17.

Despite all those potential cost-cutting areas, pricing still seems much more likely to hit $300 or higher U.S., since anywhere under starts to approach some of the lowest margins Apple hardware would have seen in a while. Is that worth a foothold in the emerging small tablet market, one that arguably could halt the advance of the Kindle Fire, Google Nexus 7 and other Android tablets? Maybe so, but Apple isn’t one to limbo just for the sake of it, and at around $300, an iPad mini would still be very competitive with the rest of the field.

I am not quite sure about you, but have you ever ventured to a building where it is a virtual black hole where connectivity is concerned? I am referring to the lack of an Internet connection, even though there does not seem to be anything wrong with the initial layout of the place as your eyes tell you at first glance. Perhaps the wireless router that the organization uses lacks the kind of wireless “punch” to send the signal across, or it is just something as unexplainable as the Bermuda Triangle, but seeing that the former is the far likelier affair, how about bringing in the calvary in the form of the Western Digital My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender?

As its name suggests, the My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender from Western Digital
will cater for those who want to expand their wireless connectivity, be it at home or at the office. Perhaps you own this really vast tract of land and would want to introduce the wonders of Wi-Fi to the entire area, only to realize that the wireless signals fall within the four walls of your home, leaving you to go without Internet connectivity on your Wi-Fi only iPad when you are seated under the apple tree right out there in the garden. The My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender should be able to get the job done on your behalf, where it is tipped to deliver faster, stronger and more reliable wireless network coverage to Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Just what is the trade secret of the My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender that allows it to perform seeming miracles? For starters, it will rely on a 3×3 multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) antenna array design, which is definitely different from the 2×2 design that is found in majority of the other devices in the same market segment. This particular engineering design will allow customers to significantly extend the Wi-Fi signal from their existing routers or gateways, translating to the ability to enjoy HD streaming movies, online gaming and video calls in remote areas of the home without compromising on speedy wireless-N speeds where possible. Not only that, the My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender will also boast of a Gigabit Ethernet port so that your wired-only entertainment devices will also be able to get a piece of the action.

Expect to fork out $89.99 for the My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender, which does sound cheaper than remodeling your home and getting rid of some concrete beams and walls to let the Wi-Fi signal waft through.

Press Release
[ Western Digital My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender, for times when you really need Wi-Fi copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

For the most part, Acer blew its Windows 8 load back at IFA and Computex, but as we’re learning now, the company still had a handful of goodies left to announce. The outfit just introduced a pair of touch-friendly, Win 8-ready all-in-one desktops, the 23-inch Aspire 5600U and the 27-inch Aspire 7600U. As you can see in the press shots, the design here is fairly minimal, with an edge-to-edge display, a transparent panel at the bottom of the bezel and a thin frame measuring less than 1.4 inches thick. The machines can also tilt so that they lie at a nearly face-up 80-degree angle.

In either case, you’ll get a 1080p panel, with 8GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Either machine, too, can be configured with Acer’s InstantOn technology, which promises 1.5-second resume times. The 27-incher has a discrete NVIDIA GT640M GPU with 2GB of video memory, however, while the 23-inch model is stuck with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics. Further, while they both have Core i5 CPUs, the 5600U has a 2.4GHz 3110M, while the 7600U has a 3210M, clocked at 2.5GHz (overclockable to 3.1GHz). The 7600U also has two HDMI inputs, whereas the 5600U has one. Finally, the U5600 will be available in touch- and non-touch-enabled configurations, while the 7600U will be touch-only. Both will be available this month, with the 23-incher starting at $1,000 for touch-enabled models, and $1,150 for touchscreen variants. The 7600U will sell for quite a bit more: $1,900.

Filed under: Desktops, Acer

Acer announces Aspire 5600U and 7600U all-in-ones, coming this month for $1,000 and up originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Oct 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in August, Amazon was clearing out some of its Kindle tablets at significantly reduced prices. One of the Kindle tablets that saw a price cut was the Kindle DX. That tablet was available for 29% off making a discount of about $110 at the time.

Now that Amazon has unveiled its new Kindle Fire HD and Paperwhite devices, it seems no place was left for the Kindle DX. The significant discount on the Kindle DX was an effort to remove stocks ahead of the new products launching and Amazon is no longer selling the DX directly to customers. If you’ve have been wanting one of the larger Kindle DX readers, you can still get it used via third-party merchants on Amazon.

The indication that the DX is being removed from the Kindle line comes in the fact that there’s no mention of when the device will be back in stock. The tablet has also reportedly been removed from the Kindle family box and the comparison tables of different Kindle models on Amazon. Taken together that indicates that the DX has, in fact, been discontinued rather than simply being out of stock.

The chance of a new model of similar size packing its own little keyboard coming aren’t great. The market has shifted significantly towards tablets, and Amazon has done impressively well with its Kindle Fire line of tablets so far.

[viaThe eBook Reader]

Amazon Kindle DX quietly killed off is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

For those who aren’t 100% satisfied with Apple’s Maps, there is a chance that you are pining for Google Maps, even though the version for iOS was not updated and is not as advanced and feature rich compared to its Android counterpart. Now we know that Google has confirmed that they have not submitted anything to the iTunes App Store yet, they do have an app in development although when that is expected to surface is pretty much anybody’s guess. However thanks to Ben Guild, he has posted on his website rather blurry images of what he claims is Google Maps for iOS in its Alpha form.

These are just partial screenshots so we can’t really get an idea of what the final app could look like although based on what we see, it seems that Google has applied some of Android’s design language to the Google Maps app for iOS, but we guess we can’t blame them. You can head on over to Ben Guild’s website to see the rest of the screenshots, although to be honest there’s really not much to see. In any case if these screenshots are true, it’s good to know that Google is working on the app.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google deploys Indoor Maps for Google Maps in the U.K., Google Maps for Android gets offline functionality,