These tablets are expensive and low-priced, but there's a group of people who call it more fragrant than an iPad

In 2020 there is a digital product category that is much hotter than in previous years, and that's tablets.

Previously, we have analyzed that, due to the launch of the "stop-and-go" online teaching model throughout the country, tablets in the electronics market as a whole cold Q1 quarter, there has been a situation of non-decline in demand.

And when we're talking about tablet sales, we often think of Apple's iPad, Huawei's MatePad and many other products from mainstream hardware vendors.

But have you ever noticed some student tablets that are widely distributed in shopping mall counters, bookstores and other offline channels, with high steps, reading Lang and other brands?

Photo from: Sina Weibo

These tablets are low and expensive, but sales are not small

"Step high point reader, where will not point where, So easy, mother no longer have to worry about my study." 」

Most people should stay on top of this "single bet X4" ad for the impression of a learning machine.

The ad aired in 2013 and is now about seven years away. But in these seven years, point-reader is no longer the original point-reader, but has become the more popular form of hardware today: tablets.

But the only constant is still high price, low configuration.

We opened the shopping platform and searched for student tablets, and the number one seller in this category was the step-high school machine S5, which sold for $4498.

Opening the details page, the machine is equipped with an 11-inch TFT screen with a Qualcomm Dragon 660 AIE SoC, a storage combination of 6 plus 128GB, and a front 8 million, rear 1300W camera combination.

Other configurations we don't look at first, from the SoC that directly affects the smooth experience, the Dragon 660 AIE chip is not a bit familiar? It's actually a mid-range chip that debuted at the vivo X21 in early 2018, and the step-by-step S5 was released in the second half of 2019, and in the fast-iterating chip market, the Dragon 660 AIE can be said to be a certain age.

And with nearly $5,000, what else can you buy? Now you can buy the iPad Air 3 with the A12 chip and the Huawei MatePad Pro with the Kirin 990, both for less than $4998.

This configuration can not keep up with the price of the situation not only occurred in the high-priced learning machine, we also looked at a number of 3000 yuan and 1000 yuan grade student tablets, the situation is the same, and even a lot of products sold to 3000 yuan equipped with SoC, even the manufacturer's name can not be called.

Obviously, these student tablets don't have any appeal in terms of performance and configuration.

Picture: JD.com

But we also found that with real money to buy these high-priced low-quality tablets, there are quite a few people.

Before the outbreak, the tablet market had been struggling for years. From 2016 to 2019, global tablet shipments have fallen for four years in a row, according to Stadia, a foreign market research agency.

2016-2019 Global tablet shipments. Picture: Stadia

If you look only at the Chinese market, the tablet market has also been cold in previous years, according to IDC statistics, in the Chinese market, tablet shipments are also falling continuously, until last year only slightly warmed up.

2015-2018 has been down for four years in a while.Picture: IDC

However, in the tablet market experienced a gradual decline in sales in the past few years, there is only one sub-category, is always booming, that is, student tablet.

Recently, IDC will be step high, excellent school, reading Lang-led student tablet from the tablet separately divided out for statistics. As can be seen from the statistics,Even in the first few years of the overall environment, sales of student tablets continued to climb.

Steady rise. Picture: IDC

IDC said growth in the student tablet market will be more stable over the next two years than the decline in ordinary tablets, and they expect overall shipments of Chinese student tablets to reach 4.4 million units this year and 4.7 million units in 2021.

It's not hardware, it's integrated educational resources

What's driving parents to pay big prices to buy their children a backward, expensive tablet? In the editorial department of Ayfan, who is only 26 or 27 years old, I couldn't find the answer, so I found some friends and relatives and asked them what they thought.

These parents who bought student tablets were better off looking for them than I thought. Eventually, I found seven parents who had bought student tablets for their children, most of whom were priced between $3,000 and $4,000, one at more than $4,000 and one at less than $3,000.

The reasons for the purchase can be summed up in the following:

1, there is no time to coach
2, inability to tutor children
3, the child wants
4, school requirements

The majority are the first two reasons. They say there are few opportunities to tutor children's homework because of working hours or their abilities, and that starting one or two hundred hours of after-school tutoring, if done every day, is stressful for both the child and the parent's wallet, so they hope to be able to help the child through the student tablet Monday through Friday.

Reasons to buy student tablets for your child

In addition, some parents said that some schools are now preparing to promote "smart education", some schools will directly equip students, and some schools will ask parents to buy. But much of what parents are asked to buy has been shelved because of parental objections or changes in the Education Bureau's policy.

When asked why they chose these educational tablets over traditional tablets, the basic answer revolved around two sides.First, counseling resources are relatively rich, and second, better control of children's use of tablets.

For ordinary tablets, online lessons, tutoring exercises and other educational resources are distributed in different apps, and according to parents, different schools, different classes and even teachers in different subjects recommended the same brand of online classes, finishing and collecting takes a lot of effort. More crucially, many online classes or tutoring materials, need to pay for or open a member to use, which is an additional fee.

Most students use the teacher's classroom as one of the propaganda points

For student tablets, most will work with the mainstream online class brand and a variety of tutoring apps to cooperate or buy copyright, directly built into the machine, not only a full range, but also free for students to use, some offline retail stores will even have free download and update courses and other services.

Just as when we were young, we would play "Heroes" with a song star, and now students get a tablet, without care, it is estimated that the next second will play "Glory of the King". This is also an important reason why student tablets can attract the majority of parents.

From the above interview with several parents to buy student tablets, no matter which brand, which price segment, are basically equipped with parents remote management function. Parents can monitor their children's usage time, view content, study progress, or restrict students' access to learning-related websites or download unrelated apps through apps on their phones.

One of the family interviewees said:

In fact, I also know that these students tablet is not cost-effective, but buy a common tablet home, if the child is not to learn, I might as well pour money in the sea. It's a little more expensive, but at least when (parents) go to work, they know if he's studying or playing games with a tablet.

Parents' mentality is a lot of this, in this (child education) it is difficult to talk about what cost-effective.

A down-dimensional blow from mainstream hardware vendors

No more poor can be poor education.

Since ancient times, the education market has been a battleground for soldiers.

According to IDC research, china's online education will reach 309 million users by 2020, the market size will reach 453.8 billion yuan, the market potential is self-evident.

In April, Huawei launched its new tablet MatePad. Most reviews compare the MatePad with the iPad and think it's Huawei's target for the iPad.

In fact, Huawei is also in this tablet new product, the first and built-in their "education center" app, the app is also in collaboration with the mainstream online learning platform, integrating a large number of educational resources, these resources also cover the entire K12 (pre-school to high school) stage.

In addition, parents can also limit how long their children can use and access content after entering an education center.

Simply put, it can be turned into a student tablet at the click of a button.

The MatePad has a better hardware configuration, a more mature combination of accessories, and a more affordable price than a student tablet. And after exiting the Education Center app, it's an ordinary tablet that can be used for fun or work for the whole family.

In fact, Huawei is not the first to use this "traditional tablet to student tablet" strategy, before Lenovo has launched a main networking function of the tablet M10, the same in the mainstream tablet hardware configuration, the basis of the addition of student model, but also integrated a number of educational resources in it.

So think differently, whether huawei or Lenovo, its goal may not be the traditional tablet market, which is already very saturated.Instead, it's staring at the student tablet market, or even a down-and-down blow to the market.

Isn't the iPad fragrant? Parents: It's not fragrant

The education market is not only at home, but also abroad. Apple, Microsoft, Google and others have been rolling out hardware products for students for two or three years, layout the education market.

Although these foreign products are no less powerful than local products, in the field of education, the appeal is not necessarily stronger than the latter.

Let's use the introductory iPad, which focuses on the student market, as an example.

Apple once launched an ad that simply tells the story of a group of elementary school students (or middle school students) who complete a "gravity"-themed assignment on an iPad.

iPad ad "Homework" . Photo from: YouTube

In the ad, the schoolboys use slow motion on their iPads to film eggs and watermelons landing at the same time, analyze the impact of gravity when a bike jumps over obstacles, use Apple Pencil to draw pictures of what the moon will do around the Earth, and even edit a little video about gravity with iMovie.

iPad ad "Homework". Photo from: YouTube

The ad perfectly showcases every bright spot on the iPad, and the connection to learning is just right. I can't even go to elementary school again after reading it.

But beautiful, in the domestic K12 stage students, really can use these functions in their homework is not much, or even no. If parents were to show the ad, they would probably still go to the counter of Xinhua Bookstore to buy a student tablet.

Simply put, this is the difference between what you imagine learning and what you learn in reality.

In the more vertical field of education, the advantages of hardware alone are not enough to impress the market, education itself is more important or content, but also in line with local characteristics of the content.

And this is also like step high, reading Lang and other established education products manufacturers, to stabilize their position in the student flat market moon.

But obviously this moth is not deep enough, coupled with the competition in this market there are still a lot of unreasonable places, mainstream hardware manufacturers into the market to set off a big change, may not be a difficult thing.

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