Blog – Page 56 – Argus Insights, Inc.

Five Acers Beats a Flush

Argus Insights’ analysis of the tablet market continues to show interesting results that are not so easily noticeable in the marketplace. As we add new tablets to our data set, we gain greater insight into how these products perform. With this new data, we can make firm predictions about a product’s failure or success. As always, some products buck the trends. In the tablet market that underdog is Acer’s Android-based Iconia tablet series.

Wait, what? Acer makes tablets? And they’re good?

Not only does Acer make a tablet (they’ve actually released five models during this tablet craze), users love it for one reason—PRICE. With the Android tablet experience appearing so similar across devices, consumers now differentiate these devices on price.

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The data above indicates that across key attributes, Acer’s Iconia Tablet receives nearly the same sentiment levels as the Motorola Xoom. The key difference between the Iconia and other tablets is the positive perception of the Iconia’s Price/Value.

This price differentiation reflects a lack of maturity in the tablet market:

The price/cost of tablet devices does not reflect the value that users receive from the devices. The usefulness of tablets has not extended beyond what can presently be done with laptops and smartphones, and therefore will continue to be seen as a luxury/fun purchase.
There is not enough differentiation to force purchase choices toward particular products.

While the average consumer may have seen Acer products in stores, few are aware of the value that the Taiwanese manufacturer brings to the US market: quality products comparable to marquis brands offered at affordable prices. In recent years, they have become more consumer-facing and less component-focused, raising the profile of their products here in the US. Those of us who are very aware of what we get from Acer know that the Iconia is the choice for great functionality and aesthetics at a price point that beats top brands. In the tablet space, or more specifically the crowded Android tablet sub-space, Acer provides greater delight to its users simply because the experience costs less than the competitors’.

Acer’s Iconia tablets are not iPad killers. They are, however, an economical standout in a crowded and homogenous tablet market. Will Acer make a big splash in the market? We’ll see, but they are happy to steal Android-based tablet market share from heavy hitters like Samsung and Motorola.

Don't touch this? TouchPad Update

The market has voted. Consumers recommend not touching the TouchPad with a ten foot pole. The Touchpad has had the fastest decline in delight we’ve seen, ever, in the Tablet market. Within two weeks of launch, it went from being one of the highest rated experiences in the market to one of the lowest.

The question is “why?”. There are all sorts of pundits talking about their high hopes for the TouchPad experience, especially as a potential ecosystem alternative to the iPad. Based on what we’re seeing in our data from actual users, HP failed to execute on the basics. Across the board, the top usage scenario for Tablets is content consumption, typically in the order of Web Surfing, Movies, Games, Books, and Music. Here’s how the TouchPad usage stacks up:

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Notice that on the features that matter most, users, even those that love the TouchPad, are not hot on it’s ability to support content consumption. What’s even more telling is where enterprise usage ranked. The TouchPad was supposed to be THE tablet for the busy professional, providing rock solid enterprise support. Professional usage, “Work” ranked 9th of overall usage topics mentioned with a net negative sentiment across the board. This means the TouchPad not only didn’t measure up the expectations of the core Tablet market, but also missed the mark for the core niche they were aimed on delighting.

Luckily HP has an advantage over their competition–Web OS. Overall, the OS was a source of delight for consumers, though the lack of Apps within the WebOS ecosystem continues to be an issue. If they leverage the over-the-air capabilities they pioneered with the Palm Pre, then disgruntled users may find an improved experience.

HP TouchPad, Leader of the Pack?

Over the jam-packed holiday weekend, a large number of people were unboxing the new HP TouchPad tablet. Argus Insight’s early results show that the HP TouchPad is now the highest-rated Tablet experience in the market today, beating out the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1″ (which has a larger display than iPad). Though we have some initial results below based on four days of data, we’ll report back to see if HP has hit or missed the mark for our must-have UX attributes.

We can already compare the first four days of TouchPad experience data to that of other tablets. While we tend to share our data on a timeline, we can also compare these experiences based on the product launch date. It turns out that products are similar to rockets. You can determine their success or failure pretty soon after launch. While we lack the telemetry information of modern space flight for products, Argus Insights’ algorithms do a good job of sizing up the potential impact that a product has on a market.

Below is the Buzz Landscape for the leading tablets available today. What’s different from the evidence we have shared in the past is that this is based on “days from launch” rather than calendar days. This means we can compare the launch profiles of these products to see how they compare over time. There’s a lot here, but we’ll focus solely on the TouchPad today, leaving other juicy insights for later.

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The TouchPad has a respectful start, ahead in both buzz and delight against the Xoom and iPad. The Galaxy Tab has a stronger start, but falls off quickly. Notice that the TouchPad’s buzz levels are muted in comparison to some competition. Competing as it was against Transformers: Dark of the Moon, we feel that the holidays dampened the normal reviewing behavior of consumers (we’ve seen the same seasonality effects around other holidays where people share after they’ve recovered from their revelry).

Switching gears to a different view, the Rating Velocity Landscape, we see a different dynamic playing out in the market.

The Cumulative Rating Velocity is another view of how the buzz volume changes over time. Most products tend to fall over time, owing to slowing market interest. Every now and then you see a product that increases in rating over time due to a growing number of people engaging with the product. The Acer Iconia Tab (Android) is that product in the Tablet Market today. HP could follow a similar pattern, but it’s too soon to tell. We’ll have better information next week after the effects of the holiday weekend have had a chance to dampen out. If our view that the holiday weekend impacted the TouchPad results is false, then the HP TouchPad has already started its slow slide to Woot.com-dom.

For the sake of the market, we hope we’re wrong!

HP TouchPad, coming to a Woot.com near you?

Let’s just put it out there. How is HP’s TouchPad going to rise above the rest in this maelstrom tablet market? If you look at the different strategies available to HP, the choices are few. They could take a page out of RIM’s Playbook and tightly couple the TouchPad to WebOS phones, but this limits their appeal to loyal Palm customers, an unfortunately shrinking population. The other potential is to pull from Apple’s fruit basket and provide an experience so compelling that people will be drawn into the WebOS ecosystem. After all, this is how Apple won hearts and minds with the iPod. People actually purchased Macs based on their iPod experience.

So how can HP use the TouchPad as a gateway drug into the WebOS ecosystem? Phil McKinney has been touting that the TouchPad will be transformative for the enterprise. Based on our data here at Argus Insights, they may have a chance. As people discuss their tablet usage, only the Playbook and the occasional Windows 7 Tablets evoke notions of “professional” use. Notice below how the topic of “work” compares across usage modes for tablet users.

Just yesterday I presented at the Northern California Association for Strategic Planning June meeting with the punch line of what HP needs to provide with the TouchPad experience in order to pull ahead of the fray…

The TouchPad has to be playfully serious

Even the enterprise-focused Playbook has web surfing as its most mentioned use

case with games mentioned above professional usage. Tablets mimic our smartphones more than our laptops from that point of view. The need for an Angry Birds fix has extended to larger Tablet screens. As such the TouchPad has to enable users to work hard and play harder!

The Surfing Experience must mimic the laptop, not the smartphone

iPad users continue to lambast Apple for the lack of Flash support on the iOS browser. (Trust me, we have the evidence. Just ask!) Given the larger screen of tablets, user expectations are shaped by their laptop usage more than their smartphone. One of the key marketing features being touted by Android tablets is their Flash support. Tablet users expect that browsing the web on a tablet should look like, well, the web, not some gossamer threads of the web viewed through the peephole of the smartphone screen.

Plan for multiple users. Tablet’s aren’t personal

Unlike laptops and smartphones, tablets are increasingly becoming group computing devices. “Hey dear, toss me the iPad. I want to look something up real fast.” “Mom, can Candice and I play Angry Birds on your Iconia?” HP has the opportunity to add personas to the TouchPad so that the device tailors its experience to the user who happens to hold it. This could be a huge source of delight for families if they also improve the stickiness of the WebOS experience as HP seeks to win over consumers.

The TouchPad will determine if HP + Palm > Apple. We all are watching with baited breath to see if the TouchPad shows up in our homes or on Woot.com.*

*At Argus Insights we view Woot.com and other deal-a-day sites to indicate whether or not a particular device has “Jumped the shark.” Argus Insights does not endorse any third-party products or services.

Take me to your Reader!

eReaders are getting a ton of press lately, and for good reason. Turns out people still like to read literature longer than 140 characters. While Kindle has made many people leave their dead trees at home, tablets have turned out to be a hidden favorite for eBook publishers and fans alike. In today’s post, we’ll take a shallow dive into how tablets are being used for book consumption.

My personal experience with eBooks started with Stanza on my iPhone. My wife became so concerned with her bleary-eyed husband that I received a Kindle over the holidays. It’s my constant companion on trips and even when dropping the kids off at school. The display is fantastic and easy on the eyes. Though I shudder when I do it, I still read content on my other devices, smartphone, and laptop included. Tablets offer similar levels of multi-tasking accessibility and are widely regarded as the “swiss army knife” of personal computing. They can do a lot of useful things when you need it even though specialized tools would serve you better. Given the broad utility, many people keep their tablet with them always and, in contrast to your swiss army knife, you can take it on the airplane with you.

Question is, for tablets, is the eBook experience the corkscrew (seldom used, but much talked about) or the scissors (not the reason you bought it, but the most-used feature) of the overall tablet experience?

We at Argus Insights can answer that question. Below

you’ll find our Segmented Attribute Funnel™ for the various tablet usage scenarios.

eBooks rank as the 4th most popular usage based on how customers share what’s important to their tablet experience. This puts eBooks out of corkscrew territory and squarely into the scissors category. If you look across the sentiment segments you find that even people that don’t care for their tablet (the No, AND segment) find that eBooks are still something to crow about. It’s interesting for the tablet market that users would rather curl up with a piece of aluminum and glass rather than listen to their favorite music.

The tablet is the latest device in the battle for convergence in consumer electronics. As we can see from the data, like swiss army knives, these devices converge around different usage scenarios based on what customers are looking to do and the device capabilities. Dedicated eReaders may still have a place in this market but with a different flavor of convergence where eBooks are their “big blade” and web surfing becomes their corkscrew. Argus will start covering eReaders in the coming weeks to answer that question as we rely on user wisdom to decide which experiences deliver on the promises of delight.