It's shaping up to be a happy holiday season for gadget lovers, as the average prices for a range of consumer electronics, from flat-screen televisions to Blu-Ray DVD players, smash through record lows in the recession.

Exhibit A: flat-panel TVs. The average price of a flat-panel TV dropped to a record low of $630 by the end of August, down from more than $900 a year earlier, according to research firm NPD Group.

At the same time, laptops based on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista and XP operating systems, excluding the cheap stripped-down machines known as netbooks, plummeted to an average price of $572, down from $689 a year earlier, said NPD. It's the first time that such laptops have fallen below $600. And it makes Windows notebooks even cheaper than a Windows-based desktop computer, which recently cost an average $680, according to NPD. Computer manufacturers are hoping that Thursday's launch of Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system will put the brakes, at least temporarily, on recent price declines.

Other consumer-electronics products also have hit record low prices. Camcorders fell to an average price of $275, down from more than $360 a year earlier, NPD said. And some Blu-Ray DVD players now cost less than $100 for the first time, with retailers such as Best Buy Co. having run $99 specials on the machines earlier this year. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

Story Date: September 2, 2010