Notebook brand vendors in Taiwan have recently started reducing their notebook prices in a bid to digest their inventory and enable a smooth transition to the new Huron River platform in the first quarter of 2011, according to sources from notebook players.
The sources believe that vendors will start another wave of price cut in the latter half of December to detract consumers from taking a wait and see attitude.
Acer recently dropped its 14-inch Timeline 4810TZG ultra-thin notebook to NT$19,000 (US$624), while the 11.6-inch Celeron U3400 ULV-based model has also dropped to NT$16,000. Micro-Star International (MSI) as well as Asustek Computer have also recently cut their ultra-thin notebook prices to boost sales.
As for Calpella-based traditional notebooks, players including Asustek, Acer, Toshiba and Lenovo have all dropped their Intel P1600-based entry-level models to around NT$16,000-18,000, while Core i3, i5 and i7-based mid-range models have seen a drop of about 10-15%.
Acer has also dropped its high-end Aspire 8943G, which features Core i7-720QM CPU, ATI HD 5850 GPU and Blu-ray disc drive, from the launch price of NT$70,000 to about NT$55,000.
As entry-level traditional notebook prices have fallen to NT$15,000, 10-inch netbooks with Intel Atom N400 series processors have likewise seen their average price drop to around NT$9,000-10,000, while the some dual-core models are down to only NT$11,000.