Netbook market looking at major price cuts

There was no shortage of netbooks -- those inexpensive and underpowered laptops that have been all the rage for the last year -- at this year's CES convention, with many wondering if they haven't completely hit the point where they've become interchangeable commodities.

High-end netbooks like Sony's Lifestyle PC aside, most netbooks now look and act about the same, offering the same features, components, and screen size.

So what's the market's next move? Cut prices, of course. Netbook pricing has been slowly creeping up over the last year as buyers looked for bigger hard drives, better performance, roomier keyboards, and larger screens. That feature creep means it's not uncommon to see prices well above $400 for entry-level devices.

The folks at Freescale Semiconductor want to turn that trend around, offering a low-power chip designed to sip electricity while letting netbook makers offer devices for less than $200.

Notebooks.com got its hands on some of Freescale's prototype devices at a private meeting during CES and came away impressed, calling them "extremely well built." A gallery of photos and videos on its website tends to bear that out. Video playback looks amazing on the device shown off, but more extensive real-world testing will obviously be required to see how general performance measures up to other units. Freescale also claims eight-hour battery life on its new models, a bold statement that I'd love to see put to the test.

The one drawback is that the OS is a pretty stripped-down, a Linux core with a web browser and a video playback client, and little else. No productivity suite, and possibly no potential for add-on applications at all.

Freescale has reference designs out now, with the goal of having partner machines on the market in time for the holiday season this year. We'll be watching!