Netbooks Used As An Excuse By Notebook Manufacturers To Raise Prices?

While researching deals for our Techdealspro section, we uncovered a rather worrying trend that a quick analysis of our historical data supported. There appears to be a collusion to raise the prices of entry level notebooks across global manufacturers.

Even taking into consideration the fluctuation of exchange rates, this is something that can't be ignored. For a start, we haven't been able to get hold of any new traditional laptops under £300.

We tried the following 10 popular online vendors (Microwarehouse, Oyyy, Pcworld, Argos, Comet, Ebuyer, Tesco, Dabs, Misco, Dell) and couldn't find ANY.

For example, in February 2008, the Dell Vostro 1000 could be purchased for as little £269 including delivery.

Its specs, which include a dual core processor, 2GB RAM and a 120GB hard disk hard disk is still superior to what most entry level notebooks. We found around a dozen of sub-£300 laptops from in early 2009 and late 2008 while browsing around our techdealspro section.

But there's worst as the prices of netbooks themselves are quietly being pushed up as the recession and the bill of materials (BoM) increases. Back in 2007, the first netbook, the cost of the cheapest EEE PC 701, was closer to £100 than to £200.

As of early 2010, the number of netbooks costing £200 or less has dwindled. We saw two at £199.99, at Ebuyer arguably the cheapest online e-tailer in the UK with the overwhelming majority costing £250 or more.

This brings up a valid question, are laptop manufacturers, which incidentally produce netbooks, ultra-thin laptops (CULV-grade) and traditional laptops, hiking up the prices of the latter across the board to improve their margins?

Apart from memory prices, components in the world of computers tend to go down in price, not up. In the case of entry level laptops, we've witnessed increases in the range of 10 to 20 percent.