Asus plan budget netbook release

Taiwanese netbook giants, Asus are reportedly planning to release a budget netbook for around £150.

The netbook will run a Google operating system, although the report was not clear as to whether the OS would be Chrome or Android 3.0.

However, correlations between a recent announcement from Google, and the reported rollout date for Asus’ new device, indicate that it will be a Chrome device.

Sundar Pichai, who is Google’s vice president of product management, posted on his Twitter account that new Chrome OS running devices would be appearing in stores “midyear”. The report emanating from Asustek suggests a June release date, so the two statements marry up. This is, of course, pure speculation.

What is certain, however, is the device will be hitting the market with a fetching $200-$250 price tag, translating to around £120-£155 in the UK. The reasons behind such aggressive pricing are fairly transparent; Asus have given themselves a six million unit shipping target for netbooks in 2011.

If reports of the ailing health of the netbook market are to be believed, this sort of budget approach is entirely necessary if Asus are to hit such targets.

With the continuing high-performance of tablet devices in the marketplace, we can expect this trend of cut-price netbooks to continue.

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