Tablet war: iPad leads at Gitex Shopper despite discounts by rivals

Tablets continue to sell fast at Gitex Shopper with iPad, Samsung and Microsoft Surface Pro competing for the bigger share.

iPad continues to outsell other brands as both iPad 4 and the mini outselling both Samsung and Asus MemoPad, despite the latter’s price dropping by Dh200.

Meanwhile the Surface Pro which has still not been officially launched in the UAE or the Middle East has made its debut at Gitex with price starting from Dh2,999. The 128GB Surface Pro with an I5 processor and 4GB RAM is priced at Dh5,399 a discount of Dh200 compared to retail stores outside. Keypad is included in the price.

Eurostar has launched its own full-fledged tablet, the 7" ePad Genie, a dual core with the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with dual sim functionality.

Shaan Jethwani, Executive Director of Eurostar, told Emirates 24l7 that the tablet is priced at Dh799 and has been launched to specifically target the existing gap in the market.

"We shipped in 5,000 units of the e-Pad Genie for Gitex. Retailers have already latched on to all the stocks. We are planning to order more shipments during the coming months," he said

"The tablet does not compromise on quality; it is in fact powered by a high-speed Cortex A9 1.6Ghz processor and has a display resolution of 1024x600. The device has an inbuilt GPS," he added.

HCL, which recently launched its Me series, has priced its products very competitively. The 7" ME U2 is priced at just Dh399 while the 9.7" Me G1 is selling for Dh849. The U2 runs on Android Ice Cream Sandwich and is powered by a 1GHz Arm Cortex A9 with 8GB memory that is expandable to 32 GB.

The G1 on the other hand comes with the latest Android Ice Cream Sandwich and runs on a 1.2GHz Dual Core Cortex A9 processor, a 1GB DDR3 RAM and 16GB of internal storage that can be expanded with an additional 32GB. The device also has a mini HDMi and a Micro USB port.

"I came here to buy a tablet. But now I am confused," says Rajan PK.

“I am going around all outlets to check out for the best bundle offer. Most prices of most products are fixed by the retailers, some of them are offering gift vouchers that can be immediately used to get a discount on the product.”

Jacky's is selling the Google Nexus and the Asus Memopad with a similar offer, cutting prices by almost Dh200. The 10" Asus memopad can now be obtained for just Dh1,199 while the 16GB Google Nexus is being given away for Dh799. The 7" Asus Memopad is, however, selling for Dh549.

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