Black Friday 2008 – The war of the $199 netbook?
While the trend towards netbooks (small, low-powered, generally linux based, laptops) has been increasing over the last year, something happened over the last week or so that has really been interesting to me. As we get closer and closer to this year’s Black Friday, generally a source of ridiculously good deals for those early holiday shoppers, I’ve noticed the prices on netbooks begin to plummet.
It started last week with Best Buy offering the Asus Eee Pc 900a for $299:
For a netbook that was previously going for around $450, this is already a great deal, and we’re not even at Black Friday yet. But the price war is continuing already with Buy.com offering an Acer Aspire One netbook for only $309. Not as good of a deal as Best Buy, but it is indeed a significant reduction from the original price.
Something makes me think that a lot of the retailers out there are going to drop the prices on these netbooks to around the easy to justify $199 mark to bring in shoppers in this otherwise terrible retail season.
It’s amazing to think that only a few years ago we were talking about the prospect of the $199 DESKTOP as being an amazing thing. Now we just might be on the cusp of the $199 LAPTOP. Hell at $199, I’d even buy one just for the hell of it.
October 20th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Black Friday sales (and some predictions including about netbooks) here:
http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com
October 20th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I wish they had these deals back when I was a homeless rodeo clown. Doesn’t matter so much these days now that I’m a world class magician !
October 20th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Thanks for that link David. I’m going to keep my eye on that site.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
[...] Black Friday ad shows that the new Mini 9 netbook will cost $299 on Black Friday. And some are speculating that prices may drop for some netbooks to as low as $199“! So that’s the range we’re talking about here: $199 to $350 for basic models. [...]
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January 11th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
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February 27th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
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