The use of low power and speedy solid state drives is one of the things keeping thin and light laptops from dropping to Netbook-like prices, but a new cheaper SSD might just change all of that.
Announced this week, Intel has a new line of solid state drives with lower prices than we’re used to seeing.
Enthusiasts can grab Intel’s 330 series solid state drives and throw them in desktops and laptops, with 60GB running for $149, 120GB for $229, and 180GB fetching $349. Those prices aren’t quite a match for what Intel is offering them for in the US, with the same drives going for $89, $149, and $239 in comparison, but we have seen street price knock a fair few dollars off those Aussie price tags thus far.
While that’s interesting, the more likely result from this is that we’ll see these drives trickle into Intel’s Ultrabook laptops, potentially offering the thin laptop technology at a better price point.
At the moment, the cheapest we’ve seen an Ultrabook is just under a grand, with the $899-999 bracket offering Intel Core i3 processors and conventional hard drives. With the more power efficient solid state drives running at a cheaper cost, we expect to see these loaded into new light laptops by the end of the year.
