Here is the gist of my concern with the pricing (this might get long, and definitely will get certain people angry, but remember, it's my perspective and opinion).
It comes down to price for what you get. And we're all looking at it in comparative purposes as we should. But what exactly is the price premium and what do we get for that premium over the competition.
First, I look at the fact if we do go ipad mini, there is absolutely a premium price involved. on comaritive 32gb models, that difference is as noted earlier, 65%.
Spec comparison has been done to death, but I have to look at the CPU. Not necessarily performance, cores and speed, But age of the lifecycle of the parts in use.
The N7 for example uses NVidia's latest commercial offering Tegra 3. This is a relatively young platform and thus the costs associated with it, are currently higher than what an older product would generally cost. As the lifecycle of any product extends, so does relative costs of production due to scale.
Apples choice to go with the A5 CPU in the ipad mini is what to me really stands out as the big question on price. The A5 is not Apples latest and newest CPU. Especially with the release of the A6x in iphone and ipad. The a5 can be considered a "old" product and thus established. The costs of producing this chip should have dramatically reduced over the course of time as production on it is refined and costs associated with it's invention are covered.
now coming to the Screen. it not being "retina" seems to be a sticking point with regards to the cost. Why? because it's not retina. it'ss not even as high density as the cheapest competitors. While there's more to screen quality than just resolution, it is a very important aspect. a lower resolution screen built on existing and older production methods is far cheaper and easier to make. So far (and haven't been confirmed), the LCD in the ipad mini isn't any dramatically new technology or device, and wouldn't be using any newer or more advanced production techniques than any of the competitors higher resolution panels.
I cannot comment on the unibody construction, but apple again has been at that for a long time now, and costs of manufacturing them shoudl have decreased. Though since this is a new form factor, it's hard to tell.
Then we look at some of the features that Apple have. no NFC, No GPS and so on. these again are seemingly to consumer ommissions, and should take away from the over all cost of hardware. Not having something should never cost more than having it.
So thats where we get to the crux of it. for the 32gb versions of either, you will pay a 65% higher premium for Apple's release. This brings us to the non tangibles. the feel. The "does this feel right for me". "Do i preffer iOS or Android" or the like. or "is the Apple ecosystem worth that much more to me than the Android ecoystem?"
these are the personal questions. the ones that hardware stats and figures wont tell. So the question becomes are those worth 65% more to you?
But the general believe i've seen, is that the hardware itself doesn't make up for such a dramatic premium. This is why the question keeps coming up as to why it's priced so high.
How this concerns me with Apple, is a return to the "apple tax" days of 10 or so years ago.
When you as a company have to go on record to defend your price point, compare it to your competition and can only use buzz words and comparisons to your own higher end products for evalution of your current price, You have to seriously reconsider that you may have in fact, over estimated your items worth.
Do I think that Apple iPad mini can demand a premium price over the competition? Does Apple's existing goodwill, knowledge of the industry, class leading industrial design and reputable ecosystem and app structure allow for a premium? Aboslutely.
I just believe that the value that they've assigned to that premium is off the mark. 299 would have been seen as a much more reasonable start. a 299 32gb ipad mini would be a bargain in my mind. a 329 16gb model isnt.
