Retailers Have Now Started Selling Ivy Bridge Laptops At 30% Discounts

The notebook industry never ceases to amaze. When things were going upwards, notebook makers were smashing all kinds of records. Now with the immediate shift towards tablets, expect the unexpected when it comes to laptops.

This latest news story is every bit as hilarious as it is saddening.

According to a report here, laptops powered by Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs are now selling at discounts around and over 30 percent. Normally that is always a good thing for the consumers, but the bigger picture here is pretty much depressing.

First off, this is no small matter — these are not the days of old when laptops sold for sky high figures. Many notebooks are already shipping for under the $1,000 mark. And when you factor in the above discount, things become downright frightening.

Downright frightening for hardware vendors, that is.

If this keeps up, it will undoubtedly and hurt the shipments of Haswell powered laptops that are slowly starting to hit store shelve. And in turn, this could also affect the sales of touch enabled devices.

And ultimately, these little factors trickle in and have a say in the overall adoption and market share of Windows 8, as well, for better or for worse. The biggest loser, however, will be the notebook makers and hardware vendors, who are already passing through a bit of a crunch period.

Shipments of new PCs, notebooks included, have been on a continuous decline for several quarters.

Unless things take a turn for the better, market watchers are already forecasting some rather drastic changes in the overall mobile PC industry. Smaller vendors could end up consolidating, and the overall laptop landscape could be up for a change.

For now though, you can hunt for these bargains if you are in the market for a new laptop.

Haswell offers a number of notable advantages, but if you don’t necessarily need them, the prior generation Ivy Bridge notebooks and ultrabooks are still pure powerhouses.