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The economic forecast continues to be stormy, but that hasn’t stopped netbook makers from rolling out a new generation of netbooks clearly aimed at an upscale crowd.  The new Sony Vaio P will retail for a staggering $900. That’s right, a $900 netbook.  Kind of defeats the purpose of netbooks, which were designed to be both ultra mobile and low cost.  The new Asus EeePC T91 will start at $500, and the Dell Inspiron Mini will be available for $600.

The Asus model will offer a touch screen that swivels, allowing the device to be turned into a tablet PC, and a built in TV tuner, and both it and the Sony Vaio P offer built in GPS.  The Dell Mini 12 offers a 12 inch screen, making it the largest netbook offered to date.

Another upscale netbook is the HP Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam Edition.  It sports a custom painted floral design and billed as a “digital clutch” is clearly aimed a female audience.  It will be available for $700.

As the very happy owner of an Acer Aspire Once, I am glad to see the netbook market flourishing, but I think the rising prices may end up hurting it.  High prices were the reason the original UMPCs never did very well.  Anyone remember the Jornada 720?  It was introduced back in 2000.  Great little device with a full keyboard, color screen, Windows CE, 32MB of memory, a 56K modem, and 9 hours of battery life.  It was a mini computer in every sense of the word, but the $1000 price tag turned most people off.  I can see the same thing happening with these high priced netbooks.  The market exploded because they were so affordable AND portable.  I mean let’s face it, laptops are technically portable but trying lugging one around an airport and you’ll see they really aren’t.

I’d like to know what you think.  Are upscale netbooks a bad idea?  Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!

Read[PCWorld]