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Notebook computer prices likely to stabilise this year

DUBAI — Prices of notebook computers, which have been steadily dropping over the past several years, are poised to stabilise this year on the back of enhanced technical specifications, industry sources said.

Santosh Varghese, newly appointed Regional General Manager of Toshiba Computer Systems Division Middle East, said prices of notebooks have almost bottomed out. "The new line-up of notebooks will have higher technical specifications that makes any further sharp price drop almost impossible. For instance, all new generation notebooks will have 1GB as standard memory specification instead of 512 MB or lower memory chips, he pointed out. In 2006, prices of the notebooks continued to drop at 10-15 per cent.

Speaking at the Middle East launch of the Portege R400, a breakthrough Windows Vista based mobile PC, conceived by Toshiba and Microsoft, Varghese said the Gulf market for notebooks recorded 60-80 per cent growth. Toshiba, which is set to mark a milestone in March 2007 by selling a total 50 million notebooks since it first launch, posted a sales growth exceeding the general market trend at 100 per cent, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In the UAE, its sales grew 80 per cent last year.

He said the latest notebook is the result of over two years of joint development efforts and sets a new benchmark for "anytime, anywhere" mobile computing as well as underpinning Toshiba's commitment to lead the industry on innovation.

The Portégé R400 is the world's first notebook to deliver real-time email active notification over a 3G network. The Portégé R400 automatically checks and downloads full emails with attachments, as well as checking, updating and synchronising calendar items, even when the notebook is closed or the operating system is in suspend mode."

Bharat Kumar, Business & Marketing Director, Microsoft, said together with Toshiba, the software giant wanted to further our contribution to mobile computing and get involved in innovation in terms of hardware design, advances in software and fresh approaches to style and ergonomics.