Pioneer has released a netbook with an 11-inch screen for Christmas with a dealer price of $369.
Pioneer product manager Jeff Li said netbook vendors unfairly charged Austalian consumers more for products than in the US. Pioneer was pricing the netbook to address the situation.
"When we are looking at the prices of netbooks in the US compared to prices in Australia, the prices are nearly double. We need to tell consumers in Australia that it is not right," said Li.
The small size of the Australian market and the cost of freight were just excuses vendors made to charge more, said Li.
He said, Pioneer can sell a netbook cheaply because it manufactured for other markets in the Asia Pacific including China, Japan and Hong Kong.
"[It's the volume - we are not a local white-box maker any more. We are a global brand," said Li.
The DreamBook Lite A11 Ultra Slim netbook is due this month. It sports an 11-inch screen with notebook-quality resolution of 1366x768 rather than the standard netbook's 1024x600.
The keyboard is nearly full sized, said Li. "It's a netbook price for a notebook-sized computer."
Recommended retail for the netbook is $599, although a reseller could sell it for $449 and still make a 10 percent margin, said Li. However, Pioneer was keen to keep the netbook priced higher.
"We like to give the dealer more margin and have a profitable Christmas," laughed Li.
Pioneer is bringing 50,000 units to Australia and is in talks with a couple of distributors, said Li..
"I think we are doing the right thing by giving the consumer a similar price to that in the US," said Li.
Pioneer will also launch a mini-PC designed to attach to the back of a TV to provide internet access, gaming and multimedia functions.
The fanless device uses the nVida ION chipset with the 9400M graphics card and retails for $399.
It goes on sale at the end of October.
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