As we followed IDF yesterday we heard about a $99 tablet price target. We assumed it was for Android tablets but no, Intel are targeting their low-end Baytrail solution for Windows tablets at that price point. Intel are also increasing marketing and promising some new and improved features that could include Realsense 3D sensors for high-end Windows tablets.
Hermann Eul, corporate VP and GM of the Mobile and Communications Group at Intel explained in his keynote yesterday that by lining up low-cost SKUs (processor models) up with the removal of Windows licensing costs (announced at BUILD yesterday) they could enable Windows tablets “even down to $99 or $129. “As we speak we have more than 90 tablet designs coming to the market” spanning from below $100 to $500.
Full keynote video below.
The announcement was made during a segment in which Hermann highlighted the ‘4X’ campaign which aims to increase tablet sales to 40 million this year across the Android and Windows range.
Clearly Intel don’t expect the $100 segment to include too many $99 Windows tablets in 2014 but if the Windows Store takes-off as it may do after Universal Apps become possible, why not more? It’s likely to be down to differentiation. Low-performance ARM-based platforms will be cheaper so there’s an opportunity to drop $20-$50 for higher performance and perhaps the extra USB functionality.
We can’t read too much into the perceived split in the mainstream and premium segment but 50:50 seems about right. 20 million Windows tablet sales in total for 2014? Yes, we can see that happening as the products are already selling very well.
The low-cost products are likely to come from partners in China. Intel were happy to show who they’re working with as local country partners.
In the slide are listed: Livefan, Telcast, iWork, ramos, Aigo, Vido, onsa (sp?), Neso and two brands we can’t translate. In 2014 Intel are going to set a target of getting 20 ODM partners to produce 60 global designs via the Intel Turnkey Program which includes references designs, tailored software and other support packages.
Intel also announced they will provide marketing campaigns for this segment and will market to both consumers and IT decision makers. Intel will also help by using their existing distribution channels. 
Realsense for Tablets?
Update: Video below
Finally, for the mainstream Windows tablet segment that closely matches the coverage we have here at UMPCPortal, we see that not only is Baytrail-T being updated for CR (cost reduced) versions now but there are also performance improvements coming later in the year too. An estimated 15% performance improvement along with ‘new experiences’ in the area of security and immersive gaming. We can’t help thinking that is related to Realsense when we look at the icon.
A depth-enabled camera features in the early part of the presentation. This feature would require Realsense on board so again, it looks like Realsense is coming to tablets this year. Watch the video below It’s amazing.
It looks like we’ll be busy here at UMPCPortal in 2014. We’ll continue to focus on the mainstream and high-end of the Tablet PC and mobile PC market and bring you more details about the technologies and capabilities as soon as we can.
I hope it’s not going to be a race to the bottom again like with netbooks unless it doesn’t translate to lower build quality, significant reduction of hardware/software features and the general trend of making just plain bad products.
Other than the $0 Windows license, what else are planned to cause this reduction in price? Also, is MS Office Home/Student still bundled into this or are free Office licenses gone?
“The company is expanding its Intel® Atom™ Z3700 series (“Bay Trail”) processor lineup to include several new products. New entry SKUs deliver 64-bit-ready, quad-core performance at a much lower cost based on engineering changes to the board design and other third party components… Intel is also introducing two tablet master reference designs that will be available this summer. The reference designs help ODMs deliver low-cost, high-quality Intel-based tablets faster.”
They did the reference design thing in the phone space, and quite a few manufacturers just effectively released it as a product, so we will probably see the same with the bay-trail designs, and hopefully this will put a high level for the quality-floor, so we don’t get low end Chinese intel tablets full of bugs. And I imagine Chinese manufacturers are where we will see the $99 price points. Hopefully we won’t have to see lower than 1200×800, 2GB RAM or 32GB storage, but I’m sure at least one of those will go to get the very cheapest tablets. Even smaller batteries too I bet.
I think $99 windows tablets will be a great thing for competition, even if they will probably not be the devices that users like us want, they should keep the ones that we do want down in price.. we could definitely see things like the DV8P down into the $150 range in sales.
$99 Windows UMPCs would be nice if they’re not crap. Right now, I’m just waiting on discounts for the ASUS Vivotab Note 8.
On Zauba keep looking for Cynthiana:
https://www.zauba.com/import-cynthiana-hs-code.html
Baytrail-Cost-Reduced could be a good platform for Samsung:
https://www.zauba.com/import-samsung-baytrail-hs-code.html
I thought that Surface mini with Realsense could be released at BUILD conference but maybe I was a little to enthusiastic.
http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-may-add-kinect-like-detection-to-surface-mini/