Report: Nothing Matters But Price When Shopping Netbooks

Posted 08/04/2010 at 9:16am | by Paul Lilly

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The mobile PC landscape is changing quicker than most probably anticipated. Look at the latest smartphones, which blaze through an increasing number of apps with 1GHz processors. And while Apple's iPad is still the only real tablet game in town, that looks to change later this year.

So where does this all leave netbooks? Perhaps where they should have been all along. Notebook players are saying that price might soon be the only selling point, forcing netbook makers to charge less than what they're accustomed to. We're already seeing this to some extent, such as the sub-$200, 10.1-inch netbook Acer recently launched under its eMachines brand.

The latest eMachines might be a precursor of things to come. According to Digitimes, the average price of notebooks from major players like Hewlett-Packard, Asus, and Samusng has dropped to around $350, whereas these same types of machines were selling for up to $500 when netbooks first got off the ground.

One of the problems netbook makers face is that there isn't a whole lot left to add in terms of new features, so they're mostly competing over price. As a result, the average selling price is down some 8-10 percent in the first half of 2010, compared to 3-5 percent for traditional notebooks.