Call it the Netbook halo effect: small and cheap is infectious. A quick peek at the lineups of new laptops slated for an October 22 roll-out from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba make it clear that the prices of mainstream and higher-end laptops are diving, even as the technology gets better.
“There’s a new reality in laptop pricing,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst at market-researcher IDC. “It’s getting harder and harder to sell anything over $800.” O’Donnell cited a data point that showed the average selling price of notebooks falling below desktops briefly in retail. “That may have been an anomaly, but the fact that’s it’s even close is indicative of this phenomenon.”