Walmart to sell Apple iPad Air for $479, starts tablet trade-in program
As anyone who's ever purchased an Apple product knows, the company doesn't provide much latitude to resellers to sell at a discount. Apple offers a slight discount (usually 10 percent) off items around Black Friday, but usually the price it states at one of its events is the same price everyone (including Apple itself) sells a given product for.
Apple's iPad Air event
There has been a little nibbling around the edges recently, however. With the iPhone 5C, retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart were allowed to sell the new smartphone for a steep discount (half off or more), and now it looks like Walmart will be discounting the new iPad Air as well.
Potential buyers shouldn't get too excited, however. Walmart plans to start selling the iPad Air for $479 on November 1 -- just $20 less than the list price. That won't yield lines of customers camping up for the new tablet, but for anyone looking to save any money on the new iPad, it's at least something.
For the moment, the iPad Air -- and not the new iPad mini with Retina display -- is the only model to receive the discount. It will be interesting to see if rivals like Best Buy and Target will offer similar deals in the coming weeks. Just don't expect the discounting to go much further than what Walmart will be dangling.
To entice customers further to pick up a new iPad, Walmart also extended its trade-in program -- which it started for smartphones last month -- to tablets starting yesterday. Of course, your trade-in device has to be in working condition and be eligible -- none of those no-name budget Android tablets that Walmart is happy to sell you. You can get $140 for a 16GB iPad 2 (Wi-Fi only) or $125 for a 16GB Google Nexus 10, as just two examples. It looks like you might be out of luck on many Kindle Fire tablets, however: According to the trade-in table on Walmart.com, only the 32GB Kindle Fire HD Wi-Fi and the Kindle Fire Wi-Fi + 4G models will yield offers over $50.
Will you order the new iPad Air from Walmart now that it's selling it cheaper than Apple? Any interest in trading in your old tablet to help pay for a new one? Let us know in the Talkback section below.
[Via CNNMoney]