CVS To Begin Selling $100 Sylvania Netbook

It may still be summer, but that doesn’t mean the retailers aren’t already planning their Christmas seasons. Of course, given the state of economy, most retailers would be out of touch to expect too much from this holiday shopping season. What we can bank on, however, is that we’ll start to see some really eye-opening prices on items in eye-opening retail locations.

Like…the drugstore.

I’m of the opinion that the vast majority of drugstore purchases are made while customers are waiting for prescriptions to be filled. Now add another purchase to your list next time you visit a CVS drugstore: a laptop. Beginning this fall, just in time for the holiday season, CVS will be offering a Sylvania netbook for $99.99 as well as Sylvania’s new LookBook e-reader for $179. The $99.99 net book, which weighs under two pounds, has a seven-inch screen and comes loaded with Windows CE, will allow users to access e-mail, surf the Internet and visit social networking and video streaming sites (although one wonders how successful streaming will be on such a basic unit). CVS will be selling the netbook for about $5 less than Amazon – and undercutting Amazon on a price is a pretty good feat.

The LookBook e-reader features a color screen, 512 meg of storage (enough to hold about 350 books), a full keyboard, wireless connectivity, 150 pre-loaded books and access to the Kobo e-bookstore.

CVS will begin advertising the units on Sept. 26.