Apple has just announced that the price of the wifi-only model of the iPad 2 is now $399, to coincide with the launch of the iPad 3.

Apple likely opted for a more reasonable price to compete with other cheaper tablets, like the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Samsung Galaxy series.

Apple has historically went ahead with price reductions with iPhone releases, and it will be interesting to see how much of a spike in sales there will be with the iPad 2, considering that a number of iPad 1 owners planned to upgrade to a 3. Perhaps the new pricing will change some minds.

The “New iPad” ships on March 16th, at $499, $599, $699 for 16, 32 and 64GB respectively.