laptop prices

[meredith101]

Where in the wooooooooooooorld?

Every TV advert I see seems to shop cheaper and cheaper prices. I remember laptops were coming in at #1000 basic just a few years ago. Where will it all end? Good sub #200 laptops by 2009?

[vehelpfulguy]

A few years ago desktop PCs were the commodity and laptops were the "high end", bought mainly by business people, so you could charge a premium for them.

Laptops were often "special" builds where many of the components had to be specially designed and made, and they had a short sale life. TFT prices were also high.

Now laptops are the commodity and many companies now make them so prices will be forced down.

I believe there are 3 or 4 Far East companies that make and assemble the "shell" (which includes laptop case, motherboard, screen etc).

Companies just buy the shell, stick on their company logo, install the software, and there you have it, a laptop ready to sell.

I think this is how many of the cheaper companies who sell through PC World and Curry's build their laptops (Advent for example).

The low end at the moment is a tad under �300 and I can it coming down.

[phil8715]

I've heard somewhere, theres going to be laptops selling brand new for just �100.

[Ethel]

I found a receipt yesterday for a desktop pc I bought in 1994 - �1300.

And in 1998 a bog standard laptop with 64mb memory and a processor speed of 266MHz was �1560.

I see the smaller laptops, the ultra mobile with a screen size of 8" or so are now the thing to have - with a much higher price.

Like all electricals, the price will bottom out and stabilise.

[plowter]

phil8715, think you mean the $100 laptop (One Laptop Per Child project). This is a low spec laptop with low power consumption that'll be sold in developing countries.

If you think that sounds boring have a look at some of the proposed designs 18:50 Tue 18th Sep 2007

[plowter]

Oops! Missed the interesting part.

If you think that sounds boring have a look at some of the proposed designs OLPC Wiki. Who said computers have to be beige?