Dell Computer has given away free memory, hard-drive capacity and optical drive upgrades to entice customers. Now some buyers are getting free megahertz. The Austin, Texas-based computer giant is not charging for most processor upgrades on its Latitude notebooks, which are geared toward businesses. A Latitude C840 with a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 processor and 256MB of memory, for instance, costs $2,297--but a similarly configured C840 with a 1.8GHz Pentium 4 or a 2GHz Pentium 4 can be had for the same price.
The same holds true for C640 models, which are thinner but have less memory and hard drive capacity than machines in the C840 line. Putting in a 2.2GHz processor adds $100, the same as on a C840. But the prices on 1.7GHz to 2GHz notebooks are identical on similarly configured C640 Latitudes.
The megahertz giveaway, which appears to be a first for Dell, comes as a result of a brewing price war with Hewlett-Packard in the commercial notebook segment.
"HP has decided to make the commercial notebook group unprofitable for Dell," said Matt Sargent, an analyst at research firm ARS. "Dell has never really been challenged by these guys."
The price war began to heat up over the summer, in the wake of the HP-Compaq Computer merger, said Sargent. In the past, Compaq would cut prices on commercial notebooks every couple of months. HP would space cuts out even further. The situation let Dell, with its build-to-order manufacturing method, undercut the companies.
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News source: ZDNet
