The possibly upcoming Apple tablet computer will definitely not be priced below $500, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook told TechCrunch during its quarterly earnings conference call.

Cook mentioned that he thinks most people buying portable devices want to have a full-featured notebook, not a slow low-specced netbook. This is quite disputable though as netbooks are making a big dent in the entire computing market now.

Cook said Apple had no interest in entering the low-end consumer computing market as the margins in this segment would be too low for Apple. He called computer products with a price below $499 ‘junky’. He did not reject the possibility though that Apple is working on a new portable computer device.  But if it is, it will be priced above $500.

It is obvious that Apple is really not coming out with a netbook. They have repeated this numerous times. They do not have any belief in the market segment.

If there is a tablet in the pipeline however, it will be be a fully-featured highly-specced large touchscreen tablet with a price tag of around $800 at least, if you think in Apple’s regular prices.

[Via TechCrunch]