Samsung sees iPad 2 thinness, price as challenge
South Korean giant Samsung Electronics on Friday admitted it faced a tough challenge to compete with Apple’s new slimmer and cheaper iPad, saying “inadequate” parts had to be improved. The iPad 2 unveiled this week was described by Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs as “dramatically thinner” than the previous model.
The tablet is one-third the thickness of its predecessor at 8.8 millimetres (about one-third of an inch) and also thinner than Samsung’s latest 10.9-millimetre Galaxy gadget announced last month. “We will have to improve the parts that are inadequate,” Lee Don-Joo, executive vice president of the Korean firm’s mobile division, told Yonhap news agency. “Apple made it very thin.”
Apple is also winning on price so far. Samsung’s original seven-inch screen Galaxy Tab was priced at nearly US$900 if bought without a two-year contract from mobile operators, while the cheapest iPad 2 costs US$499. Samsung has not announced pricing for its new 10.1-inch tablet.
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