Why are netbooks so expensive now?

A

AndroidVageta

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
469
Simply put in the title...I was looking at netbooks on Newegg cause I want one with ION...but the prices now a days are so expensive compared to what they used to be. I mean, the MSI Wind that I bought a year ago was $280...now it goes for fucking $430!!!

WHAT THE HELL???

And this is for the basic netbook setup...Intel Atom...1GB...160GB...nothing has changed except price...why?

I mean, a ION netbook with a single core Atom are starting at like $500...this makes no sense!
 
AndroidVageta said:
I mean, the MSI Wind that I bought a year ago was $280...now it goes for fucking $430!!!

WHAT THE HELL???
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Demand goes up, supply remains the same, price goes up.

Further, manufacturers were barely breaking even at the old prices. Now that netbooks are a proven commodity in terms of sales, they're going to bump prices up to earn a profit. After all, no profit, no company.
 
Just gotta look for deals. My S10-2 was $270, awesome price for a solid netbook.
 
ION carries a retarded price premium, you might as well get a real ultraportable for your $500.

Normal netbooks are still under $300 for the most part. On black friday you could score your typical N270/1GB RAM/160GB HDD/WinXP netbook for about $180.
 
ION carries a retarded price premium, you might as well get a real ultraportable for your $500.
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That's because ION makes the netbook a reasonable (for what you should expect out of something that cheap) gaming platform, at least on par with the GMA and Integrated Radeon HD graphics most ultraportables ship with. Obviously it's still not very good, and even a cheap desktop would be much better at gaming, but if you're wanting that sort of thing with that sort of mobility, then ION is a very reasonable choice.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
That's because ION makes the netbook a reasonable (for what you should expect out of something that cheap) gaming platform, at least on par with the GMA and Integrated Radeon HD graphics most ultraportables ship with. Obviously it's still not very good, and even a cheap desktop would be much better at gaming, but if you're wanting that sort of thing with that sort of mobility, then ION is a very reasonable choice.
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I have to disagree. The Atom holds it back for any real gaming.

Most people just do not need ION for anything other than HD video, and even that is overrated.

If you want to do more with a portable device than simple email/web surfing/word type stuff you really should just buy a cheap laptop. They are about the same price anyways.
 
Menelmarar said:
Supply and demand, welcome to capitalism.

Also... learn to use the internet?

MSI Wind, Atom, 160GB, 1GB RAM, $290... NOT 430...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152138
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Menelmarar said:
Samsung, 1.6ghz atom, 1gb memory, 160gig harddrive
$325
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834131033

Still not $430
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are you guys blind? the OP was looking for something that had a ION, you listed a couple generics with a typical 950.
 
Terpfen said:
Demand goes up, supply remains the same, price goes up.

Further, manufacturers were barely breaking even at the old prices. Now that netbooks are a proven commodity in terms of sales, they're going to bump prices up to earn a profit. After all, no profit, no company.
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That last kernel will never register with the likes of people with the attitude of the OP. They do not give a scrap of care whether the company selling a product makes money, just what it costs them.

I like a deal as much as the next guy, but in the end I'd prefer the companies I buy from make some profit, else what is the point?
 
Gabe3 said:
are you guys blind? the OP was looking for something that had a ION, you listed a couple generics with a typical 950.
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They were talking about the part where he found a non-ION netbook for more than $400. Are you sure you're not the blind one here?
 
Ion just costs too damn much. If 400+ is really the price they have to charge to profit with ion then it's a failed piece of technology. It has all the awful slowness of a normal atom/GMA netbook, but with 1/2 the battery life and GPU flash acceleration. Might as well buy a real laptop at that price.
 
There's not much that can be done on the price front through. If you don't use an atom with a 945 chipset it costs $45 instead of $25. IIRC the atom chip costs about $40, for the rest the problem is that because they're selling alot less of them the design costs are being amortized over alot fewer units.
 
I really want to see what happens with Ion 2, I wonder if it will be competitive at all.
 
Making computers smaller always costs more. This is a product that didn't even used to exist before a few years ago, outside of a few super-expensive niche products. The fact that you can get a tiny computer running standard OS and apps for less money than you'd spend on a larger machine is pretty fucking awesome really. I remember when the cheapest home PC you could buy was $2500 (in today's $ more like $3300).

It's a great time to be a consumer, that we have such wonderful things to whine about.
 
The ULV lappies are at the same price with these ion based netbooks, makes no sense to get the netbook.
 
I got a Dell 10v w/2GB Ram, a 160GB HDD, and a full warranty for $225. You just have to shop around.

For an ION though, you're pretty much stuck at over or around $400.
 
When I bought my dual core 11z 'netbook' at $799 (Aus Dollars) it was still cheaper than buying an Atom powered EeePC 10" over here....go figure...dual core CPU and 64bit W7 or an EeePC with an Atom and XP for the same price?!!
 
I looked at the Dell 11z, then the 14z.. then it hit me.
After I configured the 14z with the decent specs, I was at nearly 1,000 and couldn't justify it with no CD drive, crappy graphics just to get something "ultra portable"

I said screw it, and went with a Studio 1555: real C2D proc, full sized/backlit keyboard, big ass hdd, dvd drive onboard, decent graphics, and opted for a 9cell battery for 6.5hr battery life. Granted, in the end it isn't a "netbook" or "ultraportable" but it still only weighs in at just under 6lbs.. it's still lightweight compared to my Alienware.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I used to own a MSI Wind, and the keyboard was so pitifully small, I never used it. This time around, I wanted something I know I would use in the field... so I sacrificed portable for power, and price. I ended up getting it shipped for around 1050.00

I have heard good things about the ION platform, and yes.. $400+ seems like the price range.
 
Menelmarar said:
Supply and demand, welcome to capitalism.

Also... learn to use the internet?

MSI Wind, Atom, 160GB, 1GB RAM, $290... NOT 430...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152138
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Sorry me and my comrade the OP are not used to american ways. In soviet russia, products that have 3 chips inclusive of chip A do not cost more than chip A alone.

that, buy the way OP, is your problem. Nvidia wants ION to compete, but Intel doesn't, and since Intel is big boy, it doesn't. It'l be intresting to see how all these lawsuits play out, and if intel will change its ways. Considering the marketing push behind AMD's VISION by AMD, I expect that a very similar situation has been going on there. When AMD announced vision I thought it was going to be great, laptops, cheaper than netbooks, with identical performance to ION with less battery life would be on the market. Alas, no such luck.

Intels done this before twice, and quite frankly, they get fined billions of dollars and then creep back into their old ways. In my opinion, serious punative action needs to be taken against intel.

Grentz said:
I have to disagree. The Atom holds it back for any real gaming.

Most people just do not need ION for anything other than HD video, and even that is overrated.

If you want to do more with a portable device than simple email/web surfing/word type stuff you really should just buy a cheap laptop. They are about the same price anyways.
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IMHO you really need something thats fast enough to decode flash well. Atom cannot even pump SD flash encoded video. We've seen ion do 1080p decoding, and its now confirmed that Nvidia is working with adobe to get flash video acceleration to run on Nvidia chips. If this pans out as Nvidia hopes it will and with CUDA and OpenCL support, I'll definately go with Ion.

sap said:
I really want to see what happens with Ion 2, I wonder if it will be competitive at all.
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from where I stand, next year, Q2 I'm hoping I'll be able to find an Ion 2 on via Nano. I suspect if such a system does come out it'l murder intel in the synthetic benchmarks but more importantly, to the consumer, it will allow for a few critical features that pinetrail wont.

Sate said:
Making computers smaller always costs more. This is a product that didn't even used to exist before a few years ago, outside of a few super-expensive niche products. The fact that you can get a tiny computer running standard OS and apps for less money than you'd spend on a larger machine is pretty fucking awesome really. I remember when the cheapest home PC you could buy was $2500 (in today's $ more like $3300).

It's a great time to be a consumer, that we have such wonderful things to whine about.
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My flight was delayed 3.5 hours on the 28th. I sat on a cold stone floor for while waiting for an announcement because I couldn't get an accurate estimated time of departure. But the fact remains that with a couple hundred bucks I can fly --does that mean I can't bitch? hell no!

To be progressive you have to accept current standards as the norm, and work to improve them. While its nice --or perhalps even a necessity-- to sit back and marvel at technology every once in a while, just because a technological infrastructure is good doesn't mean it gets a pass.
 
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Like it was stated the reason for the insanely high prices is mainly due to Intel's less than honest business practice's. They don't make much money off of the Atom platform so they set a a price barrier. They did this in a deal they made with Microsoft in order to bracketize the market.

What needs to be done is the expiration of the original x86 patent to force Intel to actually compete on the market rather than what they have been doing with forcing competitors out of the market with licensing.
 
Yeah, the prices for new netbooks suck these days.

Personally, I got a standard Atom 1.6/GMA 950 8.9" netbook for $200 and an 11.6" netbook with Core 2 Solo for $340. Both were refurbished, but in a mint condition (couldn't even tell they weren't new).
 
MrWizard6600 said:
To be progressive you have to accept current standards as the norm, and work to improve them. While its nice --or perhalps even a necessity-- to sit back and marvel at technology every once in a while, just because a technological infrastructure is good doesn't mean it gets a pass.
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You missed my point entirely. I did not mean that we can not complain about a thing because it is new or more advanced than previous technology (for example RAMBUS memory sucked big when it was brand new, Vista, etc). I meant that it makes no sense to complain about something for which something better has never, ever existed perhaps nor even could exist at this particular moment in time.

I said that making electronics smaller costs more money. This is an empirical fact of our technological/economical system. Netbooks were never cheaper.
 
I paid $211 ($238 ship/taxed) for my Dell mini10v.

Dell Outlet is your friend.

I am quite happy with my Win7/OSX machine. :D
 
Right now, it makes more sense to just get a netbook with a CrystalHD card for flash and HD movies instead of an ION based netbook.

I'm going to skip this generation and see what comes out this summer.
 
Check MSI X320 Slim netbook @ 380$ seems a good deal.
I think that the ULV might be able to handle HD video, check tigerdirect for some good deals on Acer Timeline.
 
Picked up an Aspire 1410 during Fry's Cyber Monday sale for $350. This thing kicks the crap out of the Aspire One D250 I bought on Newegg's Black Friday sale for $188. It's almost twice the price, but it has dual core, supports 64 bit and virtualization, and it can do HD playback. Keyboard is freakin humongous and I'm diggin the HDMI out.
 
Ion netbooks are expensive because they're newer and because they often use a dual-core Atom processor... Even if they don't, the cost of Atom processors to the manufacturer is actually higher if they intend to pair it w/an Ion mobo and not an Intel mobo (yeah it's screwed up, part of the reason the FTC is going after Intel). Your basic no-frills 6-cell battery netbook is still pretty affordable tho ($280-350 for 10" and even some 11.6"-12" models), just gotta know which one to get... There's a lot of overpriced models as well.

ION's not worth it for most people imo, 'specially considering the loss in battery life vs PineTrail netbooks and even CULV laptops (12-14")... At ION's prices an Acer Timeline or one of ASUS' UL series CULV laptops are a much better deal. Unless you're all about gaming on it, the UL80Vt w/hybrid NV graphics would be considerably more expensive than an ION netbook I guess... But for HD video, quasi-portable HTPC duties, and whatnot, ION's not worth it.
 
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P.S. I paid $400 +S&H for my first-gen 8.9" Acer Aspire One (1GB RAM, 160GB HD) w/a 6-cell battery when it was first available (barely) in November of '08. This is hardly the first time prices of new premium-netbooks have fluctuated up. Four months later you could pick up a 10.1" D150 w/better battery life for $50 less. My cousin bought an 11.6" Aspire one for $300 like a month ago and it gets even better battery life (granted it uses the slower 1.3GHz Atom).

All of those play SD Flash just fine btw, I think someone above claimed otherwise... Even SD 360p Hulu, which seems to be far more intensive to decode than any other SD video flash site (including ABS's full episode streams,Comedy Central's, or Youtube), dunno why. It does choke on 1080p stuff obviously, and even 720p can be iffy... If it's highly compressed anyway. You can actually play 1080i and 720p MPEG2 files (transfers from my TiVo) on an Atom just fine (on an HDTV).
 
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I bought my wife a ASUS eeePC 900A (without a stupid webcam), Atom N270, 1 GB, 4 GB SSD, wifi, lan for a low low price of $159.00 :)
 
gaming systems are high performance. Performance = $$$

How hard is this to realize. A decent gaming latop will be about 50% more or higher than a base level lappy. Same goes for Netbooks....well even more than 50% as that's a relatively new market.
 
mustang_steve said:
gaming systems are high performance. Performance = $$$

How hard is this to realize. A decent gaming latop will be about 50% more or higher than a base level lappy. Same goes for Netbooks....well even more than 50% as that's a relatively new market.
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except that theres no such thing as gaming netbooks...
 
It's their attempt to make such a beast without being too far removed from the netbook design though. That's where the cost comes to play.

It's like the Geo Metro....there is a performance engine package that fits (the Suzuki GTi version of the car), but why do it? It's still slow.....however it's not AS slow as the average Metro, which is the point of the ION...to be faster than the average netbook, which is a "light duty" computer.
 
I just purchased (and actually received) an Asus 1201N today.

It did cost me $500, and it is a Netbook, but there is some justification for a small portion of us.

For example, not only will this be my mobile, take-everywhere use-anywhere machine, but it will also be playing HD video and music via Hulu/Youtube/etc. on my home theater via HDMI. Additionally, for light gaming with friends (DotA, Quake 3, UT2k4, CS, etc.) it'll be my box.

Also importantly, the 1201N includes the dual-core x64 Atom 330 CPU, which is important as I can install Win7 x64 and natively develop and test x64 applications; and the dual-core CPU will help with development work in Visual Studio as well as Expression Blend.

But more then that, it'll also give me decent horsepower to run a variant of *nix to use for native Android development on my tweaker-side over at XDA.

All of these things just require more than GMA 950/500/3150. Coupling a bit more horsepower (additional core) with x64 support, with an ION backing, is perfect for me. :D

I realize that others like myself may not make up the majority, but there is absolutely no way I'd purchase a netbook with Intel graphics.. that would restrict me to using it as merely an extension of my main rig as opposed to an indepently capable system, which I consider the 1201N.
 
I think netbook prices are not that bad. Sure they saw a little bump up in price, it was mainly started around back to school (about sept.) it then continued through the holiday season (since it was a good selling point for a computer as a holiday gift).

Since the market is getting saturated with netbooks now, I expect prices to die down and to find some good deals in the 2nd quarter especially with the new intel platform that should be in stores later this month.
 
The only expensive models are new or premium ones, older models w/the first Atom or more standard configs are still easily found for $300 or so.
 
why are they more expensive now?
it's probably because so many people were buying it, that they got greedy?!
 
They are putting better parts in them too. ION is a totally different animal than the GMAs

Anyways if they are too expensive now just wait a few months. With the rate that they are improving you'll find it at a good price soon.
 
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