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.

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.

At the time, a Google spokesperson told Information Age the Acer laptop would not be released in Australia, and it has not appeared alongside the other Googlebook laptops on Google's Australian online store.

Acer has since made the surprise announcement that it will indeed release the Acer Googlebook 14 in Australia in November, at $2,599 – just over double the converted US price.

Australians will also pay more than consumers in Europe, where the Acer Googlebook 14 will start from €1,199 – around $1,930 – for the same 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

Acer defends Australian pricing

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".

"At $2,599, the Acer Googlebook 14 sits within the range of Googlebook devices currently offered in the Australian market," an Acer spokesperson said.

While the Acer Googlebook 14 is the cheapest Googlebook model available in the US – and the only device in the lineup which can convert into a tablet – its high Australian price means it is not the cheapest Googlebook laptop available Down Under.

That title goes to the HP Googlebook 14 and Lenovo Googlebook 15, which both retail from $2,299 locally – while the most expensive Googlebook for Australians is the ASUS Googlebook 14, which starts from $2,799.

The four Googlebook models which launched in Australia in early October – produced by ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo – also carry Australian prices between 24 and 68 per cent higher than their largely identical US versions.

Google declined to comment on the Acer Googlebook 14's Australian pricing.

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".


The Acer Googlebook 14 is the only member of the Googlebook lineup which can transform into a tablet. Image: Acer / Supplied

'An unprecedented list price'

Australians are used to paying more for electronics than Americans – Apple's iPhone Duo will cost 25 per cent more in Australia, for example – but a price that is more than 200 per cent that of the US price is "unprecedented", analyst Foad Fadaghi said.

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.

"It really is an unprecedented list price," he said.

"Maybe heavy discounting will follow, but it's not a good look if it's a 'like-for-like' product.

"We might see a return to the old days when you could get a 'free' flight by buying a device while travelling."

Rising costs for memory chips, 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.

Google itself raised starting prices and trimmed RAM allocations on some of its Pixel 11 smartphone lineup in August, following similar moves by both Apple and Samsung.

"Rapid growth" in technology prices "are now beginning to flow through to the prices faced by businesses and consumers", the Reserve Bank of Australia said in late September.

Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock said she expects these higher costs to persist in the short-to-medium term.