I'm just realizing that if it sells for 399 Euros, it will likely sell for $399 here in the US. People pay more for stuff in Europe and I've read in several places that people there vacation in the US to get away from paying VAT and getting electronics cheaper.

Here's to hoping.

Yeah, basically Netbooks are 50% more expensive in Europe than in the US.

Now that's a much more tolerable price point. I get what you're saying. $399 for a 12" netbook is a buy for me. Too bad I'm not in the market at the moment...

Yeah that's pretty much the conversion rate. For electronics the currency exchange is really more like 1:1. And this is AMD we're talking about, they sell cheap to compete with Intel, that's always been their strategy.

I never though AMD would take the high end approach to netbooks. You'd think that they'd find a way to provide an option like Atom to make a bunch of sub-$300 netbooks.

At this rate, they are pricing themself out of competition and into oblivion.

$560 US? Are you serious? I can get an AMD based laptop with a 17" HD screen, 5.5 hrs rated battery, with a Lightscribe DVD, full ports including eSATA, better dedicated ATi graphics with dedicated video memory, larger HDD, 4GB system memory, and everything else under the sun for about $700. Why would I, then, choose to pay this much for something so limited? This netbook market has gotten out of hand. I expected that netbooks would remain $450 or less and the features get better with more competition. However, they just keep trying to get you to pay laptop prices for a netbook.

That's the German price. That includes all the taxes Europeans have to pay that North Americans don't. It will probably come in under $500 when it comes over the Atlantic. Settle down.

I think you miss the point entirely. Yes, you can pay $700 for a heavy, thick, non portable computer that can do it all. You miss the whole point of "netbook". It's about portability. If a 4 or 5lb computer is portable in your mind, that's fine. A lot of people would pay for a robust netbook that could do more because light and thin and portability is worth it. If you think about it, if you can get a powerful computer that is smaller than most, and it works 100% as a SECONDARY computer (does everything you need it to do) people are willing to buy them. Paying more for a secondary computer that is heavy/bulky that does more than what you need makes no sense to me.

I completely understand portability and like the whole concept of the small portable netbook. However, as prices seem to climb into the prices of full featured notebooks, those prices and offerings seem ludicrous. I'm perfectly willing to accept a $450 12" netbook, or a $399 10.5" one. Both have their markets. But, when 12" netbooks approach the price of a much higher performing notebook, the manufacturers must be out of their minds. It seems as if they're trying to hock less feature filled, less powerful machines for a premium price.

I'm curious how does this GPU compare to the ION?

aww, not dual core...