Its a no brainer that by the time RIM will get its Blackberry Playbook in the market (sometime 2011), the iPad 2nd gen from Apple would be the talk of the town. The Apple iPad has sold over 6 million units this year already and it will only sell faster going into the holiday season. The Samsung Galaxy Tab and talks of a Motorola / HTC tablet early next year only increases Blackberrys troubles. However there is a small bomb Blackberry has dropped here. They are assuring that the Playbook would cost less than $500 which is a very sweet price point, specially given the unproven or evolving space of tablets, the price again works for Blackberry.
But here is the thing, iPad already sells for $499. I am not asking how much lower than the 499 point will Playbook sell for, but the fact that with a Retina display and cameras (rumored) the iPad 2 would only get expensive. Will Apple be able to keep the 2nd gen iPad as affordable as the 1st gen? This might well be the challenge coming up. And for once Playbook might well beat the iPad on pricing with a good margin.