Dell recently cut prices of its dual-core notebook series, the Inspiron E1705 and Latitude D620, to less than US$1,000, according to the company's website. 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, according to market sources cited by a report in Saturday's Chinese-language Commercial Times. 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, according to an earlier DigiTimes report.

In addition, the sources in the Commercial Times report suggest that the upcoming price reduction of dual-core notebooks indicates that inventory levels for Sonoma-based models are gradually easing.

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.

In related news, Compal Electronics grabbed the contract order of Dell’s Latitude D620 series, with monthly shipments of 300,000 units at present, according to the Commercial Times report.

By: DocMemory
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