Comments on: Latest Mini-Notebooks Too Pricey For You? Quit Your Whinin’

By: dazzy

dazzy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:26:10 +0000

by the time these units hit the big retail stores their sale price can be expected to drop by 30% of the msrp. $400 is still a bit pricey to me.

By: yuar

yuar — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:29:47 +0000

and we thought Asus has taken the pc market trend to the completely opposite (more consumer friendly) direction: smaller and more chic doesn’t need to be pricey anymore.
I thought that though Apple, Sony, and Toshiba with their Macbook air, Vaio, and Portégé (latest) respectively were keeping the poor consumer masses locked in an unfair setup that can be summed up as: “there’s no way to get elegance, portability, and cool X-factor to ur notebooks other than shelling out at least $1,500″; AsusTek would be the Knight in shining armor to save the day “or go with my EeePC and get all that jazz for just $399″
Oh well, we’re heading off, at the rate, back to the old friggin trend: “smaller is, and will remain, NOT cheaper”

By: wayne

wayne — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:38:05 +0000

And I really hate it when people say “in the future you’ll get more bang for your buck.” Do you know how long I’ve heard that? The past 15 years. Everytime there is an upgrade, all the computers get the upgrade hike as well, the chip manufacturers stop making the cheaper product and the price stays the same. Don’t delude yourself into thinking “the price will come down.” It won’t. Ever.

By: wayne

wayne — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:36:37 +0000

You’re just SO wrong. The reason why this kind of price increase works is because of people like you all who believe it’s a good idea. If we all said, “No, we won’t pay that much of an uphike in price” then the market would show this. We have the power to change this, but we don’t because we’re sheep who don’t demand more from the powers in control.
And don’t give me that bullsh*t about how “They can’t sell these for free” because that’s the OLD corporate model. Look at Google.com, the HIGHEST IPO in history and learn a lesson or two about giving things away. Just because a company thinks it can steal from the masses using the old capitalist model doesn’t make it the CORRECT approach. One possible approach would be to sell these mininotes for the base cost of manufacturing and find a way to sell adspace on them. Then you’d be rolling in the dough because these would fly off like hotcakes. Perhaps not the most solid model, but definitely an option that isn’t being considered, and that tells me that corporations aren’t even trying to make a difference — they’re just trying to push the market to the limits of profitability by taking from our pocketbooks.

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:23:15 +0000

As someone else pointed out, the main objection to the $649 Asus price is not the price in a vacuum — it’s against the $499 MSI Wind!

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:48:02 +0000

Don’t you think though that these initial high prices will drop once they’ve made their top profit off the desperate to buy people and then as the competition kicks in they’ll drop their prices to win the market?
Just hold on and lateryou’ll get a bigger bang for your buck!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:28:17 +0000

I’ve been waiting for someone to finally realize the difference between charing a premium for these notebooks and buying a notebook. If you would rather buy a powerful UMPC, then pay the $2000 difference and stop whinin. If you want ultimate mobility for a fraction of the cost, save up a couple more pennies than you originally planned and dive in. Buy some RAM and a possibly a bigger hard drive for a couple more pennies and you’re basically set.

By: Nova

Nova — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:43:33 +0000

Asus makes no sense, asking $650 – $700 for the 1000 series.

MSI Wind IMO is the best deal these days for $400 – $500.

Dell, Acer etc. all look like they will be good deals too.

It just seems to be Asus that’s completely lost perspective on prices – perhaps they’re not aware they have competition now? Or perhaps they’ve confused themselves with Apple? Consumers won’t.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:49:13 +0000

The glaring fallacy here is that the $1500+ mini-notebooks are really $1500+ of function. They sell that high only partially because of build quality and partially because…they had NO competitors to prevent the outrageous pricing. You pay for the arranged components AND the name and admiration of owning the product of Company X. The future will likely force Apple Airs and Lenova X61s to be cheaper or they will find their cozy $ niches to continue to dwindle.

By: epik_x

epik_x — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:42:03 +0000

Size and price is going to set netbook manufactures apart. With most current and upcoming netbooks using the Atom, performance and battery life will be almost identical between them. Besides from more RAM, SSD, and some other features like bluetooth, HSDPA, or WiMAX.

Considering the Atom platform is very cheap to make, whoever makes the smallest and cheapest netbook wins. So far I vote for Dell at $299 for the “E”

Since ASUS/MSI are some of the first to bring the Atom to market they can charge more just because its “new” technology. Just like every new technology it has to be more expensive then its predecessor(Intel Celeron-M ULV) . At least until more manufactures release netbooks, and Nvidia’s Tegra and VIA’s Nano chips…