Struggling to attract consumers to their Blackberry smartphones RIM has moved to dump stock of the unpopular BlackBerry Playbook tablet by slashing the price to $299 for a 64GB version and $199 for a 16GB version . It was originally selling for $699.
Already several retailers have stopped selling the RIM tablet with the Company now desperate to shift the lingering inventory which threatens its profit margins.
The 16GB version is selling for $199 while the 64GB PlayBooks is being offered for just $299.99.
At the same price for all three models, you’d have to be one blackberry short of a punnet in order to pick up the 16GB model, which has dropped as low as $199 at some retail outlets.
The sale will run on RIM’s online store until February 4th.
And if you are interested in buying a cheap Blackberry tablet and then loading Android Apps the smart cookies at CrackBerry.com have, posted a step-by-step guide to loading the Android Market onto the device, so there may still be some value in the device for keen hackers.
Tech Radar said that the CrackBerry hack brings what RIM promised, but spectacularly failed to deliver to BlackBerry fans; an Android app player.
That failure, various software bugs and the lack of a native email client contributed to the PlayBook’s failure.
RIM hareholders have seen the value of their investment fall by more than 80 per cent following a string of disappointing results and profit warnings; 2,000 RIM employees have lost their jobs; and customers suffered a large-scale network outage while waiting for new products that have now been pushed back to the second half of 2012.