As pricing and rumors about pricing for mainstream branded tablets swirl around the internet it seems the shanzhai opportunity for the tablet market continues.

Initial Chinese tablets were using an early to market combined with cheap pricing strategy to compete with their Western counterparts. As the HPs, Dells, Motorolas and Samsungs slowly moved their products into launch mode over 50 different Chinese tablets hit the market in 2010.

Now that those tablets have been launched (or at least officially announced) pricing patterns are starting to appear. It seems most of the tier 1 phone brands like to think that their products are is good or better than the iPad and are following Apple's lead on price range. Essentially your seeing between USD 500 to USD800+ pricing.

Keir Thomas over at PC World argues that not only will expensive tablets increase your risk of getting mugged, they might also kill the whole tablet opportunity.

The biggest risk is that the tablet computing niche being created right now could make people write off the entire nascent hardware platform as little more than a triviality for those with more money than sense.-Source

Muggings... possibly, kill the market? I doubt it. Apple fanboys and Android fanboys alone will make sure at least a few of these higher end offerings are successful, prices will drop and yes... the shanzai will continue to crank out cheaper versions.

While they rushed to market last year, they've had some time now to improve the quality and performance of their tablets and combined with their low margins/price strategy they will continue to give those with more sense and less money affordable options.

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