Best Buy and Samsung are going to move a few more Galaxy Tabs next week. Starting on Sunday, if you buy a top-tier Samsung 3D HDTV for $1500 or $2000, you’ll also go home with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. So, in other words, if you buy an over-hyped HDTV, Best Buy is going to unload a GalTab on you. Sounds great for the buyer, but the one-week promotion speaks volumes about the current state of the Android tablet market.
The move is smart, though. Consumers aren’t latching onto Android tablets partly because they don’t know about them. Outside our silly little word, the iPad is the only tablet most consumers have ever heard about. This bundle will at least get the tablet into the hands of a slightly different demographic.
Buyers have the choice of either a 46-inch or 55-inch Samsung 3D HDTV. Both feature LED backlighting, 240Hz motion, and, of course, 3D technology. They’re rather pricey options, and a good deal more than competing TV sets from LG or Panasonic — but you get a free $500 tablet with the Sammies.
This signals that Best Buy, and maybe the manufacturers, are starting to realize that non-iPad tablets aren’t an easy sale. This comes after Best Buy redesigned its computer department to better feature and display Android tablets. They now have the same placement as notebooks, but that might not be enough to cycle through inventory quick enough. The retailer reportedly has a massive back-stock of unsold HP TouchPad tablets after only selling 25,000 of their 270,000.
The promotion starts this Sunday, August 21 and runs through August 27.