I think BlackBerry is feeling the heat. They went from producing the most coveted line of business-class smartphones to rolling out B-network cast-offs in only a few years. In attempting to gain relevance through a new line of gadgets, they unleashed the PlayBook a little while back. It seems as though they thought their brand still held some sway over consumers, as though a BlackBerry tablet would still be cooler, edgier, more desirable than an Acer tab or a cheap off-brand computer. Looks like they thought wrong. Having sold probably very few PlayBooks during the holiday season, BlackBerry is now offering all of their PlayBook models at some very drastic discounts.

Each PlayBook can now be purchased for $300, no matter the hard drive size. That means the 16GB model now costs exactly the same as the 64GB model. Seems strange given that the latter formerly went for $700. They're offering up their best model for over half off. Why the dramatics, BlackBerry?

 

I'd have to guess that Amazon has something to do with all this. The Kindle Fire retailed for a mere $200 from the start--a tough price to compete with in the non-Apple tablet market. In terms of usability, there's not really too much BlackBerry can offer through their miniature computers that Amazon doesn't have in its low price full-color e-reader. If you're shopping for a window to the internet, you might as well get the cheapest one that works sufficiently. It's the same internet. All you're paying for is the portal. The only exception is the iPad due to its extensive app infrastructure, a software market that will likely stay robust for years to come.

 

And by even building a 64GB tablet to begin with, BlackBerry seems to have missed a crucial point in the future of portable devices: hard drive space is going to become less and less important. Amazon and Apple both offer cloud storage with their tablets. You're not even going to need to have your music library stored on the disk of your device for very much longer, assuming you have a wi-fi hotspot or a 3G connection in your device. And it does seem as though constant connectivity is very much in our future. BlackBerry knows this. They know that an extra 50GB of space isn't worth much of anything in today's tablet market, and so they're willing to give it to you for free.