When Nokia announced the price of its Booklet 3G, the company put the before-subsidies price at around €575 (at the time that worked out to about $810). Over $800 for a netbook? Scary, scary, scary. Well today Nokia, AT&T and Microsoft announced the official after-subsidies and thankfully, it's not drive-your-blood-pressure through the roof high.
$299 will bag you the Booklet 3G, which boasts a 10-inch HD-ready screen, 3G (duh), Wi-Fi, a hot-swappable SIM card, integrated A-GPS, HDMI out, a 120 GB hard disk, 1 GB RAM, Windows 7, integrated Ovi Suite (for maps, calendar contacts, media etc), a 16-cell battery that promises a 12 hour battery life, Bluetooth, 3 x USB 2.0, an SD card reader, a 10.1-inch LCD (1,280 x 720) and of course, a 1.3MP camera. The whole thing runs on Intel's near-ubiquitous Z530 Atom processor.
Unfortunately, there is a catch and AT&T didn't cut that price in half without expected anything in return. Sign the dotted line and the company will let you take home the netbook for $299 but you won't weasel your way out a 2 year contract with a $60 per month plan. Ouch!
Those of you who want the netbook really badly but can't stomach the contract can look forward to shelling out $599. Failing that you could always just pay the $299, sign up for the contract, and then cancel it a week later. Sure, you'll have to pay the termination fee but as long as that's less than $300, it'll still work out cheaper than the full price.
