Intel Chief Foresees Large Cut in Device Prices for the Yearend Holidays: $99 Tablets, $299 Notebooks & $349 2-in-1 Hybrids

People who want to buy tech products as Christmas gifts during the yearend holidays but have limited funds could still make their friends and relatives happy when they unwrap their gifts.

Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said that he is expecting OEMs to cut soon their prices in the coming weeks. He gave a peek of what's in store for consumers in search of value-for-cash gift ideas for the Yuletide season.

Mr Krzanich said tablet prices could go down as low as $99, Haswell laptops to $299 and 2-in-1 hybrid tablets and notebooks to $349.

He said at the Wednesday conference call that touchscreen-based notebooks with Intel's new Haswell processors would likely be the best-selling items for yearend holiday 2013.

Mr Krzanich believes that consumers would be attracted to tech products with the Haswell processors that offer 50 per cent improved battery life and twice the graphics power in a bid to convince gift shoppers to return to PCs with Haswell processors instead of buying tablets running on Android or iOS.

He said there would be 8 to 10 clamshell models sporting the Haswell processors with the price tag of $299. These cheaper devices, however, would pose a threat to the newly launched Kindle Fire HDX tablet, Apple's new iPad lines and Microsoft's 2^nd-generation Surface tablets.

Some consumers, however, doubt Mr Krzanich's forecast.

Junster480 pointed out in a comment page of ZDNet that based on the price of the Nexus 7, "I don't see how other vendors are going to beat that especially with the cost of windows licenses."

BelDem recalled the experience of his friend who he accompanied to Walgreens to purchase a $100 device, which he described as "the cheapest, most useless piece of junk" he had ever seen. Among his friend's complaints were there was barely recognition of finger presses by the resistive touch display, the text on the screen was hardly readable because of the device's ugly plastic covering. "After seeing that thing, I cringe at the mere thought of a $99 tablet," BillDem added.

However, it was a different scenario for electrix007 who bought tablets from a Chinese manufacturer, costing $69 for the one with 7-inch screen and $129 for the 8-inch screen, which fell to the ground by continues to function with some dents. "White market tablets are a little know secret in the US where brand names tend to blindside consumers. For the same price of a Nexus, iPad, Kindle Fire or Surface, consumers can get three or four times the features compared to these name brands. Why people are willing to pay more for less ... beats me," he wrote.