Ultrabooks to Remain Pricey in 2012, Say Vendor Sources
Ultrabooks are expected to remain somewhat expensive for at least another year.
Referring to industry sources, Digitimes reports that the average selling price of the emerging category will not arrive in the $600 - $700 price range before 2013. the reasons for the high prices are high component costs, which would include SSDs as well as custom-made parts such as extremely thin LCD panels.
As demand kicks in, production numbers rise and vendors are able to drive down costs a $799 retail price could be achieved by the second quarter of this year, Digitimes wrote. While it is only the beginning for mainstream ultrabooks, notebook vendors are already feeling price pressure. Margin erosion is likely to occur in the second half of 2012 as the competitive field gets more crowded.
Some stores are already selling sub $800 ultrabooks, such as the Acer Aspire S3, while the majority of ultrabooks are still positioned in the $1000 to $1200 market.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.

HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 review: Convertible Copilot+

Acer Nitro V 15 review: Well-built budget system, but a bland screen
-
EDVINASM Hardly that would be for college? Show off maybe. College like would be Lenovo Classmate+. Pity it's not available for masses.Reply -
N.Broekhuijsen Pricy, not pricey.Reply
Anyways, not really interested in ultrabooks, too expensive... I see this will remain... :( -
Mike the AMD shill, how is their stuff better? If they are hundreds less, than their parts will be extremely cheap and no doubt crappy. Sorry, but I am not buying the hundreds less. Prices are high for ultrabooks due to component cost. SSDs aren't cheap and neither are ultra thin panels. AMD makes none of those components. AMD makes CPUs and GPUs and sometimes motherboards. AMD has no way to lower the overall price of anything outside of selling low cost CPUs (which perform poorly). My guess is an AMD ultra thin uses the cheapest of panels, a cheapo 5400 hard drive, their cheapo thunderbolt alternative (which is just USB/displayport), and cheap motherboard parts. It is the Walmart variety of ultrabook.Reply
-
N.Broekhuijsen Mike the AMD shill, how is their stuff better? If they are hundreds less, than their parts will be extremely cheap and no doubt crappy. Sorry, but I am not buying the hundreds less. Prices are high for ultrabooks due to component cost. SSDs aren't cheap and neither are ultra thin panels. AMD makes none of those components. AMD makes CPUs and GPUs and sometimes motherboards. AMD has no way to lower the overall price of anything outside of selling low cost CPUs (which perform poorly). My guess is an AMD ultra thin uses the cheapest of panels, a cheapo 5400 hard drive, their cheapo thunderbolt alternative (which is just USB/displayport), and cheap motherboard parts. It is the Walmart variety of ultrabook.
Wow... fanboy much?! Did you really sign up to post this crap? :pfff: -
jezus53 GiveItUpDudeMike the AMD shill, how is their stuff better? If they are hundreds less, than their parts will be extremely cheap and no doubt crappy. Sorry, but I am not buying the hundreds less. Prices are high for ultrabooks due to component cost. SSDs aren't cheap and neither are ultra thin panels. AMD makes none of those components. AMD makes CPUs and GPUs and sometimes motherboards. AMD has no way to lower the overall price of anything outside of selling low cost CPUs (which perform poorly). My guess is an AMD ultra thin uses the cheapest of panels, a cheapo 5400 hard drive, their cheapo thunderbolt alternative (which is just USB/displayport), and cheap motherboard parts. It is the Walmart variety of ultrabook.Reply
They also make RAM now. Bought some a few months ago for cheap. 2 4GB DDR3 sticks for 15 bucks a piece. Also, AMD doesn't charge a crap load for their CPUs like Intel does which probably brings the price down by a hundred bucks a unit from just that! PLUS, their APUs help cut the cost of having to put in a discrete card or have a mobo with graphics. -
ragenalien Its true that the ultralights wont be the same quality as intel's ultrabooks. Not if they want to get the price down as much as they say. The only thing they'll be cutting is cpu price which at best would be 100 bucks for the performance parts and 50 bucks for the basic stuff. Not enough to take them down to the 500-600 dollar range. There HAS to be give elsewhere unless they know something no one else does.Reply
(personally not a fanboy just a realist, I do like AMD). -
__-_-_-__ Digitimes reports that the average selling price of the emerging category will not arrive in the $600 - $700 price range before 2013Reply
this is February 2012.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=acer+aspire+s3&hl=pt-PT&client=firefox-a&hs=DK8&rls=org.mozilla%3Apt-PT%3Aofficial&biw=1429&bih=706&prmd=imvnsr&sa=X&ei=e-86T9mDPYau8APl1cXsCg&ved=0CBsQpwUoAA&tbs=p_ord%3Ap%2Cprice%3A1%2Cppr_min%3A500%2Cppr_max%3A&tbm=shop&tbo=
1 ultrabook @$699
3 ultrabooks @$750
imo before the end of Q2 2012 we will have several sub $700 models.