I suspect Samsung has effectively set the pricing for high end android tablets by basically copyng like for like Apple's ipad pricing. When the ipad came out people were all saying it was way too expensive. However, it proved to be a huge success so Apple was somewhat justified in its pricing. Now Samsung decided that the general public accepts that as sensible pricing.

Unless the Tab is a huge commercial failure (which with a huge company like Samsung behind it it is unlikely to be) other manufacturers will just follow the Tab's pricing. Which means we are not going to see any sensibly priced android tablets for a long long time. Of course you will still be able to get affordable tablets from people like archos but I am talking of fully speced tablets from companies like HTC, Sony or Motorola.

Shame.