Digital Home Thoughts: Windows Media Laptop Sales Spike as Prices Drop

"Sales of Windows Media Center Edition notebook computers in the U.S. retail market had their biggest surge yet, as prices for the laptops dropped drastically between the end of December and the end of January, according to new research by Current Analysis Inc. Computers running Microsoft's Windows Media Center OS accounted for 16.5 percent of notebook sales in retail chains such as Circuit City, Best Buy, and CompUSA in January, rising from a 4 percent share of laptop sales at those outlets in December, according to Nicole D'Onofrio, mobile computing analyst with the Sterling, Virginia, research firm. The primary reason for the rise in sales is the drop in price, from an average retail price of $1735 in December 2005 to $1251 in January, she said."

Wow, I am actually quite surprised by this because I didn't think that laptop based MCEs were selling well at all. I wonder why the laptop version is selling so well though because I would have though that most people would simply go for a small form factor PC with Windows MCE. I wonder whether this news means that people are happy to buy a laptop that they use for portability, for plugging into their televisions as a PVR and even ultimately do their image and video editing on that singular solution. How many of you have a laptop with Windows MCE?