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Why Netbooks Will Soon Cost $99
CWmike sends along a ComputerWorld piece which predicts that
"netbooks like the Asus Eee PC, the Dell Mini 9 and the HP 2133 Mini-Note will soon cost as little as $99. The catch? You'll need to commit to a two-year mobile broadband contract. The low cost will come courtesy of a subsidy identical to the one you already get with your cell phone. It's likely that HP is working with AT&T (they're reported to be talking), which announced a major strategic shift a couple of weeks ago that should result in AT&T stores selling nonphone gadgets that can take advantage of mobile broadband, including netbooks. What's more interesting is that low income and cheapskate buyers are starting to use iPhones as replacements or substitutes for netbook, notebook and even desktop PCs. The author's take: A very large number of people are increasingly looking to buy a single device — or, at least, subscribe to a single wireless account — for all their computing and communications needs, and at the lowest possible price."
I'd hardly call using an iPhone as a replacement or substitute for a net/note/lap/dog-book or desktop being a "cheapskate buyer".
It would be better just to buy it outright. With free wireless broadband being so easy to get, and the cost of these netbooks dropping, you are probably just better off buying it outright, and not being tied into a provider.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
In the UK (which is generally, but not always prefixed with the words "rip off") netbooks/cheap laptops have been available for free as part of contract mobile deals for quite a few months now via major retailers such as the Carphone Warehouse..
... at least in France:
:) !
http://www.sfr.fr/mobile/internet-ultra-portable.jspe?sfrintid=HP_NA_MEA_2
You can have an EEEPC for 99 euros + a USB key which allows to connect to the Internet using a 3G+ connection, which for a 2 years subscription costs you 30 euros/per month. Do the maths
Of course I think that he also predicted that we would eventually also be marrying them at some point. Now I think we're just living together.
BInding a single device to a 2-year contract is nuts. Especially a device as limited as a cell phone or netbook.
The iphone, for example, is very cool, but I'm just not interested at $70/month. Yet I pay more than that for my tv/phone/internet connection at home. I'm OK with that because at home I have flexibility -- I can attach as many phones and computers as I want.
I'm sticking with my pay-as-you-go, featureless cell phone until there's an expensive contract that gives me a lot more flexibility.
Yeah, but have you considered you can leave your work in the "cloud" and only downloaded it when you need it?
Sure you will fill a 30GB HD in a hurry if you keep everything you download, but you don't. You just download it again when you needed it again.
At least, that's what I would do.
I wank in the shower.
I am always fascinated by the twists and turns of the "convergence" of all electronic devices into "the one device that rules them all". For awhile it was looking like the video game console might be the winner. And TIVO was hot for awhile, as were set-top boxes. The PC made a run, but collapsed under their own complexity - the difficulty of trying to be all things. Those all of course both suffered from a lack of portability (notebooks were an attempt to address this) ... enter the PSP. Then smartphones popped on the scene and are probably the current best bet. But now netbooks appear, and there are some compelling reasons why they could displace cell phones as the one device everyone owns and carries. I suppose their two big problems are battery life and size. The smartphones' problems are screen size and interface (keyboard) size. Perhaps when (if) voice recognition finally works and the display-in-glasses becomes viable cell phones could overcome their limitations?
... but it lacks a decent input device, battery life and cell phone functionality.
As a self-professed gadget guy I can say that I carry 3 devices with me always: cell phone, pocket PC and thumbdrive. Sometimes I also carry a Nano if I will be listening to music for a prolonged period (battery issues with the Pocket PC and the cell phone). Here in the states, the smartphones with touchscreens and web browsers and available 3rd party applications require you to sign up for a data contract, the cost of which I cannot justify. The pocket PC has a decent camera, a good music player, a host of games and applications, WiFi, a good size screen
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
2. ??????WTF?????
3. Look like an idiot.
I don't understand why I can't simply "dock" my 300MHz 64Mb RAM, 2Gb storage mobile phone into a cradle and use a normal keyboard, mouse and screen to edit documents, write emails, browse web etc.
Psion had fully featured word processors, spreadsheets and cardfile databases running on 16bit hardware a decade ago, the problem isn't the OS or hardware... All the current crop of smartphones are up to the job.
Deleted
If mobile broadband were fast enough to watch TV online, if the bandwidth caps were high enough to connect to my firm's remote server 8 hours a day and watch 5 hours of TV shows online a week and it was less than the $30 a month I pay for internet now I would sign up in a heartbeat.
Several networks are already offering this kind of deal here in Taiwan. Some of them even giving them away for free if you take the unlimited 3G network plan combined with a 2 year contract. The unlimited 3G plan costs about 22USD at the current exchange rate which is pretty decent since you get a netbook worth close to 400 bucks retail price (they give away Asus EEE PC 901 and 1000H and such and not the cheap surf model)
Personally I think that it is a good deal.
1) MS-Windows only
2) Overpriced monthly service
3) Hardware hard-wired for only a single carrier
How wonderful, I can hardly wait.
Why don't we do this with cars next- "Get this wonderful car for only $8,000; just sign this $800 per month, 3 year contract for Exxon gas- and oh, by the way, it will only run on Exxon gas, and you are only allowed 20 gallons per month".
... will indeed be able to get things done with a well-chosen netbook. The more intelligent among them (be their income low or relatively high) will prefer to buy their netbooks the traditional way, not as a part of a two-year service contract.
On the other hand, whoever expects to satisfy their computing needs with an iPhone or a similar device will end up dissatisfied, and doubly so when on a service contract that has to be paid for monthly from a low income.
I cannot understand why anyone would want to pay the mobile companies twice.
I currently can use my mobile when appropriate but when I need something more I use bletooth to connect my eee to my phone to use it's connection. Yes this does mean paying more on my phone contract but not as much as 2 contracts would be from what I have seen on these plans already. (I'm in the UK they have been selling like this for quite while now)
Only thing that probably sucks is when it comes time to renew my contract and get a nice shiny new phone there will be no bolt on options and I will be forced to have two contracts to make the mobile companies more money.
This is not a good thing, the only people who would needa mobile broadband only option are people without a mobile. For the rest it should just be bluetooth or whatever to the mobile phone. Yes I realise the operators in the US try to discourage you from this or ban it on most plans, but that is just bollocks, if i can use the interent on my phone whats the difference if I can connect another device? NOTHING, that's what, it just does not help them rip you off.
+----------------- | What is the question!
*blink*
My wife and I used to be on different carriers. If she called me from cell to cell, yes, she had to pay more for that call (which is outgoing for her). Incoming, I paid exactly nothing at all. Inter-carrier rates for incoming calls are non-existent where I live and I know they don't exist in Belgium, France, Germany and The Netherlands. Maybe Danmark is special in this case?
Technically, I can have a cellphone and it will cost me nothing if I never ever call with it. Incoming calls are always free (roaming being an exception, of course). I have a "pay-as-you-call" plan. I effectively pay only when I call. No monthly fees, no recharge cards. Only a slightly higher rate for my outgoing calls. Still only 0.09€/min My bills are pretty much 15€ per month, and that's with my wife and my phone tied to that bill.
Now if you're talking about *roaming* you open another can of worms, but roaming is a special case.
Finally, what you say makes no economic sense. If you had to pay for incoming calls at one carrier, and the next carrier asks less or even nothing, who are people going to flock to? Indeed...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
There is a big difference between the subscription plan you buy with your mobile phone and subscription plans like this: with the mobile phone, the thing the customer is actually interested in isn't the physical phone, but the ability to make phone calls on the network, so paying the subscription fee makes sense for the consumer; the cost of the phone, which is usually indexed to the customer's desire for features/prestige/etc. is incidental to the actual thing being sold: access to the wireless network. With all these plans to sell full-fledged computers by tacking their price onto some other service, the problem is that the other service is usually incidental to customer's actual interest: the computer. If the customer doesn't really want the thing you are trying to sell, then you will have a tough time keeping them in the subscription plan.
This was tried by a number of companies in the late nineties, and all failed miserably. Apparently there are a bunch of young MBAs out there who didn't learn the lesson of the iOpener.
just a ghost in the machine.
By "paying for incoming" calls you mean "paying more for an outgoing call because you call a different carrier".
The cost ends up at the consumer, no matter which way around you twist it. In the US, the person who has a choice in using a mobile or not pays for that choice.
I checked with my carrier and outgoing calls to any carrier (fixed and mobile) in my country are exactly the same price an outgoing to a cellphone on the same network.
Yes. You are paying the same price for something that costs vastly different amounts for the service provider. This leads to complete distortion of the market.
The best customer for a cell phone provider in Europe is the one who spends all day receiving calls from other carriers. The worst customer is the one who spends all day actually making calls. It leads to all sorts of funny behaviour on the ISP side, like being unable to turn off voice mail. Voice mail is free money, twice: First you earn a bunch from some other carrier when someone leaves a voice mail (and you don't even have to use your expensive bandwidth for it), and second you make money when the customer calls voice mail to listen to the message. At least in the second case the provider has to spend a little bit on bandwidth.
The only reason why this hasn't spun completely out of control is that the antitrust authorities are limiting inter-carrier rates.
Anyway, the price of a cell phone minute, just the airtime, in the actually competitive market in Denmark, is less than 0.03EUR. The same minute when sold inter-carrier is 0.15EUR. If either the market or the antitrust authorities were doing the job properly, those rates would be approximately the same. (Basic economic theory, in a competitive market, the price of a good approaches the cost of its production).
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I'm sorry, maybe a mixture of demand and my ignorance has confused me but wern't these netbooks (i'm looking at you 701) should have cost $99? Now we've got netbooks creeping past £400($600-700USD). I love these devices but my XPS 2.5Ghz Penryn, 4gig ram (yadyada)cost barely a few hundred dollars more. The size difference isn't that amazing on the new 10" models. Speaking of which, why the seriously crap resolutions? 1024*600, 800*480. My Sony U3 [that was subsiquently stolen :@], which is knocking on 5-6 years old had an 4:3 XGA resolution. Christ, my 15" laptop has a 1920x1200 screen so the technology is avalible and cheap enough to have high density screens - why not include a nice 1280*1024?
Being from the U.S. myself I don't see any reason to defend charging for incoming calls. My landline doesn't get charge for incoming calls. Neither should my cell phone. I don't mind if they charge enough for outgoing to make up the cost (I would guess they already do this anyway). The worst offender of all is having to pay for incoming texts. I have never sent a text in my life, and I only receive a few a month, and those that I receive are generally accidents, or are from someone at work who doesn't realize that dialing my number and calling is cheaper, easier and less time-intensive than dialing my number and typing in a text message.
Unlike you I am not hopeful for the election to change anything. I have not heard anything from either candidate about this issue, nor would I want the government to get involved. I simply want consumers to stop laying down and taking it, which is probably a shallow hope since they are so addicted to text messaging.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Seems like not so much a bargain. But that's just me.
Its called Deflation, and its here.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
$100 Linux based MIPS laptops are much better but don't have the CPU power of the others. That is the $100 laptop I might buy.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
You are so right.
Where I live 50,000 a year plus benefits is not low income it's middle class.
I barely use my current cellphone and I would be getting a cut in Internet speed and bandwidth cap if I switched to a wireless account.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
That doesn't matter to me as a customer.... You do realise that?
It should matter to you that a call can be produced for 0.03EUR/min and you're paying at least 0.10EUR/min for it. Twice that if you're calling from a land line. That's the cost of not having a competitive market.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
There is a problem here, in that the mobile phone network operators have a very different philosophy than computer manufacturers.
Network operators are used to sell a service, and they see the device just as a necesary evil in order to sell the service. The effect of this is that most devices they sell tend to be locked-down, not transparent to the user, and stripped off of unwanted functionality (my PDA clamshell came with lots of software, for web browsing, for email, for many things, even many things I didn't really need, except the one thing I really needed most which I had to install myself and was one of the reasons for wanting a PDA in the first place: a python interpreter that I could use to hack around while waiting in the queue in the bank).
Yet computers in the epic 1980s era always included at least a programming language as a standard offering. Literally, even users who didn't know how to program had a programming language sitting in their ROM, floppies, or hard disk, because computer manufacturers (in that era, at least) were used to sell a kind of machine which is not very useful without a programming language built-in: the general programmable computer. Many machines from that era even booted up directly into a programming environment which was inseparable from the operating system.
After the heroic epoch of 1980s, PC clones dominated the market and Microsoft (but Apple also has to bear responsibility here) popularised a different philosophy: that the user is not supposed to know how to program and that they should be made to learn how to program in order to use a computer. Computer manufacturers started packaging computers with the idea that what they sell is not a computer per se but rather just a platform to run applications.
But even in the applications era it was easy to get into programming because, after all, the programming language could be installed as an application and used like any ordinary program. Therefore, the amateur tinkering (hacking, and I mean nothing bad by this word, it is the crackers who do bad things) spirit did not die, because those who felt the urge were able to find and set up a programming environment quickly.
At some point a great threat to the applications era appeared while the media and entertainment industry started moving into computing with technologies like the DVD: it was the combination of digital restrictions management (DRM) and treacherous computing (some people say "trusted", but one has to wonder how you can trust a computer that refuses to obey you). The philosophy of selling computers was threatened to turn from "selling application platforms" (after it was already shifted from the 1980s "selling general programmable computers") to the evil "selling platforms for specific/allowed applications only". This threat is still alive, but unfortunately now a second threat is appearing.
The second threat to the "selling platforms for applications" is, again, twofold: part of the threat comes from the rise of cloud computing, and another part from the entry of mobile telephony network operators into computing with such arrangements as bundling a netbook with a service plan. These developments threaten to change the philosophy of selling computers to "selling platforms for services". Computers will not be seen as application platforms anymore, not even as platforms for "trusted" applications. If this threat materialises, computers will be seen simply as devices needed to access a service, whether this service is mobile telephony, weather reports, stock market news, cloud-based word processing, video delivery, or email. Users in the future will forget the notion of application, just as most of them have forgot the notion of general programmable computer now. They will only know computers as windows (pun intented) that give them access to a service.
There is really no reason to believe that netbooks sold bundled with service plans by mobile phone network companies will resemble the netbooks we now know. Now they