Nokia’s netbook raises the bar — and the price

By Suzanne Choney / msnbc.com (CLICK to read more)

"A $600 netbook? That's the unsubsidized price of Nokia's new Booklet 3G, the company's venture into the netbook field. Or, it's $300 with an AT&T contract for two years. Neither is an appealing price option. After a year of great success with consumers, is the heretofore 'inexpensive' netbook starting to stray into high-priced territory?

Nokia doesn't like to call its new 2.76-pound device a netbook, but it walks like a netbook and talks like a netbook, albeit one of the best-looking ones out there, with its aluminum, MacBook Pro-like appearance. The Booklet 3G has a 10.1-inch screen and promises a battery life of up to 12 hours, quite good for a netbook or any laptop. It became available this week at Best Buy.

'There are two things that differentiate the Booklet from other netbooks,' said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret, LLC. 'One is somewhat nicer design, but the other is a huge cost difference. The problem is that consumers are going to be hard-pressed to pay a premium on design for a machine that's slower and less capable of similar devices that cost half as much.'"