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Technology Changes To Kill Netbooks?
The BBC is reporting that the netbook craze may already be nearing the end of its run. Citing rising netbook prices and many other evolving technologies that can potentially fill that gap, some critics think that the limited power of netbooks will ultimately bring about the quick demise of the once popular device. "Ian Drew, spokesman for chip designer Arm, also believes netbooks are in for a shake-up. Consumers, he said, were chafing against the restrictions that using a netbook imposed on them. 'We have failed the consumer because we have imposed constraints on them,' he said. Changing web habits and greater use of social media will mean consumers will be looking for gadgets that are tuned to specific purposes. 'It will be a lot of different machines for a lot of different people,' he said. 'This whole market will be exploding in the next couple of years.' Impetus for this change will come, he believes, from the phone world where many, many types of gadgets are already blooming."
and
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
it fills a very important need slot : fast, small, web capable device that you can carry around and with capabilities of a normal low end office pc.
as long as people are on the move and need to connect to web from a capable device (of the capabilities of a pc), that need will never cease. its not about 'social networks' or anything, its about a very common need.
i dont know from where the shitty need to link everything with social networks and whatnot comes. probably they are just playing along with the fad.
Read radical news here
Who waits for booting when you can just put the machine to sleep/hibernate when you're not using it?!? Shutting down a machine is so last-decade.
All of these technologies can be considered stop-gaps until we have enough bandwidth to support either thin or hybrid thin/network-bootable clients. The only difference between a smart-phone and a laptop (or workstation) should be it's dimensions and form. If I store my data and environment on the network I can be almost device agnostic. I can use any workstation and access all my data, applications and any running processes. I can upgrade my system or expand/add capacity without needing to replace a single device. If you have the money why not carry a super computer in your pocket? Just don't carry the super computer parts.
Quack, quack.
> Changing web habits and greater use of social media will mean consumers will be looking for gadgets that are tuned to specific purposes.
Yeah, sure. As a consumer I really want to load my belt with my phone, my music player, my pda, my pager, my tag reader, my gps, my ebook reader and whatnot. I don't mind having ten different battery-chargers in my living room. What I don't want is a 300$ netbook because it does not have a specific purpose.
Which reminds me: when will best buy sell a Facebook device, a Slashdot reader and a youtube player? Cause I still have three inches left on my belt to hook gadgets.
lucm, indeed.
The problem is the things that make a netbook so desirable by a lot of people - amazing battery life and small form factor - are being discarded by hardware makers. They are insisting consumers want more powerful devices, so they are beefing up processor and memory which eats into battery life. Similarly, they are insisting users need larger screens which increases form factor and also eats into battery life.
So basically hardware makers are wandering into small laptop territory, when I'm not sure the core Netbook market is really moving at all - it's just the hardware makers are moving away from it and finding people don't want what they are making as much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As they demand more and more laptop features ( and higher costs ).. as eventually they will become laptops and the market will vanish. The people will still want them, but they wont exist. ( barely do now )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What is it with all the netbook weirdness.
I have an Eee 900 20G. Basically it is a small, cheap, very light, well built machine with a moderate battery life. It can combine those properties because it was very low spec compared to its contemporaries. Other than that, it is just a laptop. There are no restriction or lack of featuers. It is just a laptop.
I happen to like it because I don't require a fast machine or a large screen. Therefore it is better than almost all other laptops (for me) because it nails the specs I do care about.
When I am at home, I plug it in to an external monitor and DVD drive and it works well as my home (entertainment) computer.
I can't believe I am the only person in the world who does not need a fast machine. I have particular trouble believing it because they sold so very well.
I can see that the netbook markey it "dieing" mainly because the speed, size, weight and cost has gone up, making them merge with the normal laptop segment. There's therefore nothing to distinguish them from normal laptops. But when they were small, cheap and light they sold well.
The great thing about generic PCs is that they span niches from Vortex86, PC/104, through to laptops (with any practical range of speed, weight, battery life, cost size), luggables, desktops (from tiny Via /atom to quad socket behemoths) through to servers in as many shapes and sizes.
Why does this particular combination of weight, speed, size and cost seem to cause so much consternation?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
CE sucks. WiMo sucks. The fact that if you use ARM Microsoft and Intel can't swoop in on your party and run off with your guests like they did with netbooks isn't just not a fatal flaw - it's a main reason for going with ARM in the first place.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Of course he's wrong.
When you hear people who make a popular product predict the demise of that product, what it usually means is the profit margins aren't big enough, so they're about to come out with some new, more expensive product that has higher margins.
The local stores have been having trouble keeping many of the netbook models in stock. The downward pressure on prices has been strong due to competition and online sales.
Instead of improving the product at the same price point, taking advantage of larger production runs and efficiencies to lower prices, things which companies usually do, they're going to see if they can sell less for more. Instead of $99 netbooks, which is the next logical step, we'll end up with >$400 netbooks that will have better graphics, telco tie-ins, 3G instead of wi-fi and other limiting "features". The things that made netbooks so popular will be replaced by things which make more money for the manufacturers and telcos. You see this kind of short-sighted behavior in lots of industries, not just consumer electronics. They'll say "this is not a product that consumers want". In this new top-down economy, the manufacturers tell us what we want, instead of the other way around.
There's no reason we couldn't see a $99 netbook that would surf the web, do email, light productivity apps, etc. How many of us would love a cheap netbook that you could put in a coat pocket or backpack that didn't way 3 pounds, had decent battery life and wifi? It could run on some flavor of Linux. It doesn't have to run the latest games, Photoshop or Windows. But I predict that any company that tried to sell such a product would get tied up in patent lawsuits, hit with phony shortages from memory or processor suppliers or simply bought out by a bigger company.
If anything, the netbook is going to be a victim of its own success, killed by an industry that has morphed from one based on innovation to one based on corporate dictates.
Out consumer no longer treats consumers as anything but part of the mechanism that provides wealth to equity owners.
You are welcome on my lawn.
As others have pointed out, the anti-netbook push is a desperate attempt by manufacturers to prevent the computer industry from migrating to $199 laptops. The EeePC was originally announced as a $199 laptop. Massive efforts have been expended to stop that trend, by both Microsoft and Intel. Microsoft, of course, frantically announced a life extension for Windows XP, with CPU speed and screen size restrictions designed to cripple "netbooks". Intel actually has a screen size restriction for Atom-based netbooks. (For a CPU manufacturer, that's sheer arrogance.) The netbook manufacturers were pressured to move away from Linux. (The first generation of netbooks ware all Linux-based.)
It's been successful. Since 2007, the price point for netbooks has moved up, not down. Try searching on Amazon. (Hint: search "netbook computers -case -cover -sleeve -stickers -skins -adapter -keyboard -screen -charger -drive -speaker -phone -accessory -komputerbay -battery -cable -mouse", then use the "Sort by lowest price" option. Amazon doesn't make it easy to find the cheapest product.) The cheapest is a Visual Land 7" laptop at $149. EeePC units now start at $249. The cheapest new newbook on Google Shopping (which seems to be mostly a rehash of Amazon) is $229. The cheapest netbook at WalMart is $278.