Thursday, March 6, 2014

Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 available March 9th for $650

We’ve had the pricing and availability for most of Samsung’s new tablets since early last month, but the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 has been without a specific launch date until today.

We now know that the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 will be available starting March 9th at Amazon, Best Buy, Fry’s, Newegg, PC Richard and Sons, Tiger Direct and Walmart. The 32GB model will run you $649.99, but remember that you do get an abundance of free Perks to help take a little sting out of that price.

Those Perks include:

$25 Google Play Store Credit
1 Year of Gogo Inflight WiFi
3-Month Hulu Plus Trial (only new users)
3 Months of SiriusXM (only new users)
3 Audiobooks on Audible (only new users)
6 Months of WebEx (only new users)
50 GB of Dropbox Space (for 2 years)
2 Years of RemotePC (only new users)
Hancom Office Suite
Samsung WatchON
1-Year Subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek (only new users)

Chances are that some of those Perks aren’t going to be relevant to you, but there’s probably at least $150-200 of value in that package for almost anyone. With bundled content like this, it’s not hard to see how Samsung has managed to stake out a decisive lead in the Android tablet market.

Of course, bundled content won’t sell this tablet to consumers are turned off by the 12.2-inch form factor. It’s no surprise that Samsung would be the one to push these boundaries, as it’s been doing just that in the smartphone market for the past couple of years. And the Tab Pro has competition from within as well, because the Galaxy Note Pro shares the same dimensions and even includes S Pen integration (and a $100 premium), which has proven more compelling than most had anticipated.

Are any of you going to be picking up the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 on March 9th or has Samsung moved too far into laptop territory?