Subsidized Netbooks Arrive in Limited AT&T Markets

This news isn’t a surprise by any means, but it’s always nice to get confirmation. Today, AT&T announced a trial offering of subsidized netbooks in the Atlanta and Philadelphia markets. Although low-cost netbooks paired with mobile broadband plans have been around in the EU for a while, this is relatively new for the U.S. I like how AT&T is offering a wide variety of hardware choices and not just a single netbook model. The Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12, and LG Xenia (sounds like the X110 to me) all qualify under this trial, at prices between $49 and $249. Lenovo’s X200 also qualifies for reduced pricing: $799 with a home & mobile bundle or $899 with mobile 3G only.

Stacey likes the bundle choices, but I’m not sold on them. The home and mobile package offers DSL and 3G at $60 a month, but the 3G is capped at 200MB per month. That’s far too little for a device that will likely be used outside of the home more than inside it. If a netbook is designed for portable usage on the go, why not cater plans to that use case? In fairness, AT&T includes free WiFi access at any of their over 20,000 hotspots, but mobile broadband works best when you don’t have to worry as much about your location.

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