Android

I know of no Android tablet available in the $199 price range. Someone please point one out if one exists.

The argument that Windows won because Macintosh was priced at a premium is a dubious argument.

Apple is able to purchase flash memory, processors, and touch screens in bulk. They own Intrinisty and PA Semiconductor.

Apple looks like Walmart on their supply side and looks like Barney's on the retail side. There is no price pressure. They could slash their margins but they don't have to. It's still difficult to find an iPad and iPhone 4. They can't make enough of them.

Secondly, 95% market share is unnatural. It doesn't happen often. Markets look more like GM/Chrysler/Ford or XBox/PlayStation/Wii. I suspect the smartphone market will develop similarly.

And if you want to say that the iPhone will be crushed like the Macintosh was crushed by Windows then it is just as easy to say that Android will be crushed the same way Sun Microsystems and Novell were crushed when Eric Schmidt was there.

Looks like Archos has a 7 inch tablet that they sell for $199, though it doesn't have 3G access. Archos has been around for a while and are known to build fairly solid hardware, so this isn't some drive-by-night operation hawking crap on late-night informercial either.

http://www.archos.com/products/ht/index.html?country=us&...

edit: er, apparently it still runs android 1.5...

I still can't just walk in to major stores and get these. I can go to Apple stores, or Best Buy, and now target, to get an ipad (and Best Buy, AT&T, etc stores for iPhones). :(

And, yeah, you pointed out the 1.5 issue. Google needs to do a better job of getting Android licensees to update their versions. There should be no one selling a new device in October 2010 only running 1.5.

edit: I can't walk in to stores in my area. Some stores report they have some archos tablets, but they're generally not there when I go.