Dell recently cut prices of its dual-core notebook series, the Inspiron E1705 and Latitude D620, to less than US$1,000. The price-cut could herald a price war in the brand-new dual-core notebook market worldwide and accelerate migration of the mainstream notebook platform from single-core to dual-core.

Dell has lowered the price of its Inspiron E1705 series, a consumer notebook that features Intel’s Core Duo T2600 processor and 17-inch widescreen display, to US$999. Meanwhile, the Latitude D620 line, which is based on Intel’s Core Duo T2300 processor and has a 14.1-inch widescreen display, is also available from US$899.

With Dell first to cut its prices for dual-core notebooks, more dual-core models priced at below US$1,000 will be available from vendors including Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Acer in May.Migration of mainstream notebooks to dual-core processors is expected to take place by the end of the second quarter, thanks to more price cuts on dual-core models that were priced above NT$50,000 (US$1,540) in the first quarter, according to the sources.

Dennis Chen, general manager of HP Taiwan's personal systems group, indicated at the launch conference of new dual-core products that prices for Napa models will fall from the second quarter onwards, due to price cuts of related components.

Taiwan’s notebook manufacturers, which grabbed an 87% share of worldwide shipments in the first quarter, suggested in a March 17 article that contract shipments had experienced weaker-than-expected demand during the first quarter of this year, with slow sales of Napa notebooks on higher prices being one of the causes.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved