If you've always wanted to give a netbook a try, but didn't want to spend as much as you would on a laptop, you might get a break in the near future.

Particularly for outgoing models that use 8.9" screens or smaller and solid-state drives, vendors have been implementing price drops in an attempt to offload older inventory. Both Acer and Asus have lowered the price of their cheapest SSD-based units, the 8.9" Aspire One and 7" Eee PC positioning them at or below $200 (in Taiwan), a price where some feel netbooks should have been at in the first place.

It remains to be seen how these cuts will affect pricing in other regions, though currently you can already get a variety of netbooks for less than $300 in the US.

At first glance it'd seem like customers are paying more attention to netbooks with larger mechanical disks and larger screens, 10" and up. With appeal declining for the smaller flavors, vendors like Asus have made the choice to ditch their 8.9" units altogether.