Best Buy cancels BlackBerry PlayBook orders, pulls listings

Well this is interesting. Best Buy has been canceling Blackberry PlayBook orders with little explanation. Perhaps the biggest head scratcher: the PlayBook was part of a larger RIM promotion that was supposed to go at a minimum, through the start of December.

Electronista Staff:

RIM has had a difficult time persuading some to adopt the BlackBerry PlayBook regardless of discounts. It already slashed the price temporarily to $300, and it has been giving free units as bonuses under certain conditions. Most often, the hesitation has been pinned on the lack of native e-mail and other basics, which make it hard to pick over either a higher-end but complete tablet like the iPad or else the simpler, PlayBook-based Amazon Kindle Fire.

Bottom line, the PlayBook is a massively underwhelming tablet in an increasingly crowded market. Why would anyone pick one of these up instead of the Kindle Fire?

If Best Buy can’t get these off their hands, even with a massively depressed price, it says a lot. Even though there’s a chance they already have, they likely don’t want to take the risk of taking more units on and not being able to move future shipments.

RIM Drops PlayBook Price to $199

For a device that had a pretty decent amount of hype around its release, the Blackberry PlayBook sure has underwhelmed. Despite a fairly successful launch day (~50,000 units sold), the PlayBook had struggled to achieve widespread adoption after that. Today, RIM announced a limited-time price point of $199.

But for a seemingly below-average device and the newer, exciting Kindle Fire now available on the market at the same price point, will people flock to stores to pick one of these up? It’s doubtful.

Like MG Siegler noted, a $199 tablet is a $199 tablet. You get what you pay for. People are questioning whether the Kindle Fire is a good value at its price point, so that can’t be good news for an underwhelming product from a struggling company. Look elsewhere.