UPDATE: Turns out that the Australian Hybrid machines are higher specced than their US cousins – So rather than hating us, Dell actually love us by giving us better hardware. For a full list of differences, you can check out the Dell websites, but we get 2GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive instead of 1GB and 250GB. The same spec upgrades go for the Latitude PCs as well…
We saw the Dell Hybrid announcement come from the US overnight, and its US$499 price tag was actually pretty exciting for a desktop computer. Of course, the computer was pretty exciting itself – 80% smaller, using 70% less power and packed in 95% recycleable packaging.
But now that the pricing for Australia has been announced, some of that excitement has quickly worn off.
If you’re interested in greening up your desktop PC with one of these bamboo-cased wonders, you may need to start saving, as Dell in Australia have the starting price set at $999 – almost double the US price. The US$499 equates to $525 on today’s exchange rate.
Obviously the exchange rate isn’t everything when it comes to pricing – there’s also the whole ‘economies of scale’ thing – Dell are going to sell a lot more of these in the US than they will in Australia (just based on populations), so they can afford to reduce the profit margin over there. But double the price? That’s a bit rich, isn’t it?
Dell’s other announcements from overnight are even worse: The Inspiron 13 laptop, priced at US$800 (AUD$842)will cost $1,299 in Australia; while the Inspiron 518 Desktop starts at US$349 (AUD$367) in the States, yet will cost $999 down under.
I’m waiting to hear back from Dell as to why there’s such a large price difference between the products here and overseas, and will update as soon as I hear back from them.
[Dell]