HP and Dell are reportedly planning to launch their first 11 and 13-inch CULV based notebooks sometime in Q3 2009.

Taiwanese vendors, such as Asus, Acer, MSI and Gigabyte also have CULV models in the works, and MSI has already showcased its X340 series of thin CULV-based 13.4-inch notebooks. MSI's X340 is to launch in the last week of April, while Gigabyte and the other should follow suit sometime in Q2, although it's still too early for any fixed timeline.

So, first-tier manufacturers are to ship their products a bit later, which is no surprise as we saw the same scenario unfold with netbooks, as smaller manufacturers are a bit more flexible than big players.

CULV is becoming more important for Intel, as the economic crisis starts to take its toll and consumers increasingly turn to more affordable products. What's more, Intel is not too pleased with vendors offering expensive, feature packed netbooks, as they bite into its average selling price. Intel has also put in place numerous restrictions concerning netbook design, leaving very little room for vendors to make their products appealing, as they are all evenly matched.

Unlike Atom, CULV is not a very cheap platform, although it is significantly cheaper than Intel's previous ULV offerings. It is also a lot better suited to business users, as it offers a bigger choice of CPUs, including dual-cores, coupled with better chipsets and bigger screens.

Intel also has budget minded consumers in mind, as it has recently dropped the price of its entry-level CULV Celeron 723 CPU to $107, down from $161 for 1k orders. This will make entry level CULV machines only slightly more expensive than Atom based ones with similar panel sizes, thus making them appealing to a much wider audience.

More here.