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American consumers will pay half what Australians pay for the Acer Googlebook 14. Image: Acer \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Australians will be asked to pay twice as much as their American counterparts when Acer launches its new Googlebook laptop in Australia this November, in what a local technology analyst says is an “unprecedented” retail markup.<\/p>\n
Google and Acer announced the Acer Googlebook 14 device in September as the cheapest laptop in the debut Googlebook lineup, priced at $US899 (around $1,290) in the United States.<\/p>\n
At the time, a Google spokesperson told Information Age the Acer laptop would not be released in Australia<\/a>, and it has not appeared alongside the other Googlebook laptops on Google’s Australian online store.<\/p>\n Acer has since made the surprise announcement that it will indeed release the Acer Googlebook 14 in Australia in November, at $2,599 \u2013 just over double the converted US price.<\/p>\n Australians will also pay more than consumers in Europe, where the Acer Googlebook 14 will start from \u20ac1,199 \u2013 around $1,930 \u2013 for the same 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.<\/p>\n Acer defends Australian pricing<\/p>\n When asked why Australians will pay twice as much as Americans for the Acer Googlebook 14, the Taiwanese company told Information Age that it set its pricing based on “local market conditions and the positioning of the product within the Australian Googlebook category”.<\/p>\n “At $2,599, the Acer Googlebook 14 sits within the range of Googlebook devices currently offered in the Australian market,” an Acer spokesperson said.<\/p>\n While the Acer Googlebook 14 is the cheapest Googlebook model available in the US \u2013 and the only device in the lineup which can convert into a tablet \u2013 its high Australian price means it is not the cheapest Googlebook laptop available Down Under.<\/p>\n That title goes to the HP Googlebook 14 and Lenovo Googlebook 15, which both retail from $2,299 locally \u2013 while the most expensive Googlebook for Australians is the ASUS Googlebook 14, which starts from $2,799.<\/p>\n The four Googlebook models which launched in Australia in early October<\/a> \u2013 produced by ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo \u2013 also carry Australian prices between 24 and 68 per cent higher than their largely identical US versions. <\/p>\n Google declined to comment on the Acer Googlebook 14’s Australian pricing.<\/p>\n As for why the device will now be made available in Australia after initially being ruled out for local sale, the Acer spokesperson said the company “has since made the decision to bring the Googlebook 14 to the Australian market, expanding its local product offering”.<\/p>\n ‘An unprecedented list price’<\/p>\n Australians are used to paying more for electronics than Americans \u2013 Apple’s iPhone Duo will cost 25 per cent more in Australia<\/a>, for example \u2013 but a price that is more than 200 per cent that of the US price is “unprecedented”, analyst Foad Fadaghi said.<\/p>\n The Acer Googlebook 14 is “going to be an even harder sell in Australia”, given it is “already considered premium priced in the US” said Fadaghi, the managing director of Australian technology analyst firm Telsyte.<\/p>\n “It really is an unprecedented list price,” he said.<\/p>\n “Maybe heavy discounting will follow, but it’s not a good look if it’s a ‘like-for-like’ product. <\/p>\n “We might see a return to the old days when you could get a ‘free’ flight by buying a device while travelling.”<\/p>\n Rising costs for memory chips<\/a>, largely caused by immense demand from the generative artificial intelligence boom, has seen consumer electronics companies raise prices of everything from smartphones to smart watches, gaming consoles, tablets, and computers.<\/p>\n Google itself raised starting prices and trimmed RAM allocations<\/a> on some of its Pixel 11 smartphone lineup in August, following similar moves by both Apple <\/a>and Samsung<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nThe Acer Googlebook 14 is the only member of the Googlebook lineup which can transform into a tablet. Image: Acer \/ Supplied<\/p>\n