This post was published 4 months 6 days ago.
It\'s is possible that the information within this article is now out of date or updated.

We aren’t even in August yet but already major US retailers are announcing their Back to School electronics values. The NYT today is reporting that US retail leviathan Wal-Mart is increasing their laptop selection by 40% in a drive to become a major force in PC shopping this year. In addition they are aggressively blurring the line between Notebook and Netbooks by dropping prices and intensifying the focus on consumer PCs.

To start with they are featuring a full size notebook, specially designed for Wal-Mart by Compaq, for $298, cheaper than many netbooks. A similar version with HP branding sells for $548. No word on the actual specs of the device.

Wal-Mart is also targeting students and kids with cheap ($398) laptops from Dell in colors like purple and aqua with matching peripherals such as cordless mice and external hard drives.

What about Netbooks for this school year? Wal-Mart’s Senior VP for Home Entertainment Gary Severson has this to say…

…Wal-Mart views low-cost netbooks as a "growth" category. Netbooks, the bare-bones PCs, generally sell for $300 to $400, but prices are dropping as new offerings flood the market and wireless carriers offer subsidies with the purchase of a data plan.

Severson said Wal-Mart is looking at ways to offer shoppers deals on netbooks that come bundled with a wireless plan.

"We’re having conversations with carriers and with the hardware manufacturers around that, and are really trying to find where that great value sweet spot is," he said.

While some customers are attracted to netbooks by their low prices, Severson said they do not always realize its capabilities are limited compared with a notebook computer.

"There is an education process that has to happen with the customer, and we’re working on how we can improve that because there is a confusion factor," he said.

Looks like we can expect more of the same in 2009/2010 as far as netbooks are concerned…confusing numbers of new models, falling prices, more deals including 3G data plans and an ongoing struggle to remind the marketplace that netbooks were never intended to do the same things are more expensive notebook PCs. Half the price, half the size…is less functionality so tough to work out?

Zealot (476 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).