Verizon Wireless plans to begin selling a $199.99 Hewlett-Packard netbook May 17. While it had been rumored that Verizon would join AT&T as a netbook seller, the carrier has now officially announced that the HP Mini 1151NR mininotebook will go on sale May 17.
It's official:
Verizon
Wireless will begin selling a $199.99 HP Mini netbook starting May 17.
Several Web sites and publications had written that
Verizon
was ready to offer a netbook tied to a data plan and service agreement, and
the carrier officially announced May 14 that it would begin selling
Hewlett-Packard's
HP Mini 1151NR netbook on May 17.
Verizon now joins AT&T as a seller and retail source for
netbooks,
aka mininotebooks, which have begun to make an impact on the worldwide PC market
as consumers and some business users look for cheaper alternatives to
larger and pricier laptops.
Right now, AT&T sells a number of netbooks with data plans and service
agreements in a limited number of cities. The current AT&T lineup includes
the
Acer
Aspire One, the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12, and the LG Xenia.
The fact that carriers such as Verizon and AT&T are getting involved in
selling netbooks shows how popular these devices have become in just a short
period of time. The fact that Verizon and AT&T can offer subsidized netbook
prices-in the same way that carriers subsidized cell phones for years-also
shows how far PC component prices have fallen over time.
In addition,
netbooks
provide a new way for Verizon and AT&T to sell their services as sales of
cell phones and smartphones slow down thanks to a sluggish global economy
and reduced consumer spending. (European carriers have been offering subsidized
netbooks with service agreements for several months now.)
In order to buy the HP 1151NR netbook with the Verizon plan, customers must
sign a two-year contract and buy Verizon's Mobile Broadband plan, which starts
at $39.99 per month, although Verizon does offer a $59.99-per-month plan with
faster downloading speeds. Verizon also offers a global service plan with the
HP netbook.
The $199 price for the HP Mini 1151NR mininotebook comes after a $50 rebate,
so users will have to pay an upfront charge of about $250 for the netbook.
While Verizon did not offer details about the HP Mini 1151NR, reports indicate
the netbook uses an Intel Atom N270 processor running at 1.6GHz and offers 1GB
of main memory along with a 2-in-1 memory card reader.
The HP Mini 1151NR is also supposed to work on
Verizon's
recently announced MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot network.
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