May 24, 2011 11:20 GMT  ·  By

It appears that recent happenings on the tablet market might finally end up solving one of the issues plaguing this sort of device, namely the fact that most of them are just too expensive to attract customers.

Tablets may have been the subject of skepticism this time last year, but they have long since passed the point where their marketing viability was questioned.

Now, there is the iPad and a bunch of Windows, Android, MeeGO and even webOS tablets either on sale or on their way.

Unfortunately, most models so far unleashed had the critical disadvantage of being too expensive for most buyers' taste.

More recently, however, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer has been getting attention after being sold out within minutes of launch.

Of course, component shortages may have contributed, but the company made a point of stating that demand was simply very high.

No doubt the price of $399.99 contributed to the popularity of the product, and it looks like that tag might have a more far-reaching effect on the slate segment as a whole.

For the sake of comparison, the 10.1-inch Acer Iconia starts at $449.99, while most other products so far revealed sold for even more.

As such, reports imply that, sooner or later, other IT players will follow ASUS' example and reduce the prices of their own tablets.

In fact, the price cut will be significant, not just symbolic, with the final selling figured expected to be about $100 less than they are now.

With the coming of the Android 3.1 operating system and the steadily increasing number of Android apps, non-iPad tablets might finally take off, maybe even before the fourth quarter of 2011 comes.

What remains is to see how the less common slates, like the webOS-loaded HP TouchPad, along with MeeGo models, perform in this area.