The Dodge Report

Taiwan-based OEM Compal said last week said it will be unable to fill 100,000 notebook computer orders in the fourth quarter due to DRAM and battery shortages. In the face of strong demand, that's bad news for  retailers, parts suppliers and consumers. Compal's 2007 projections call for shipping between 18 and 18.5 million units - better than 4 million more than 2006. In 2005, there was a serious Intel chipset shortage that constrained supplies of notebooks. For parts and component suppliers, strong demand is good news, but narrowing the manufacturing pipeline (and hence, payment) is not. You'd think parts shortage would prop up notebook prices, but some pretty good bargains can still be had. It's still a volume game, meaning price decreases rule. Carefully check out tech specs, though. While memory and other capacity-driven components can be a moving target with notebook pricing relative to configurations, batteries are a staple. Taking the example of three configurations Dell's Inspiron 1705 notebook, the prices look decent. What's more they come with Intel's Core Duo microprocessor and 1 GB of DDR2. The 1705 equivalent I bought a year ago for about $100 more came with half the RAM and an older Intel CPU.