Ever since the birth of the Netbook, or rather the classification of sub notebooks as Netbooks, many including myself have asked the question: Why are they still so damn expensive?!?
As far as overall pricing some Netbooks range from $300, for the older model Asus Eee, to $600 for a HP Netbook that is the same as a Celeron laptop.
While there is speculation that these costs will be coming down with newer and cheaper chip sets and the falling price of RAM, to believe that any of these Netbooks will ever really be below $200, to me is folly.
LCD's simply can't come down that low and there is still a lot of electronics in the machines. So when I hear, or see someone offering or talking about an $99 Netbook, I am skeptical at best.
It seems that to get the cost low enough that the average person would look twice at a Netbook, they have to come with a "data plan." This is like your typical cell phone cellular minutes and data plan where you sign up for 1 - 2 years and get deep discounts on the hardware. I can't imagine who, aside from the heavy traveler, would ever need this kind of deal.
It is of my own personal opinion that the best way to get Netbook costs down is to stop trying to make laptop spec'd Netbooks, and make less powerful devices.
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