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Dell Ditches Netbooks
angry tapir writes "Dell has ceased production of Inspiron Mini netbooks; in effect ending its pursuit of the receding netbook market, at least for consumer sales. When Dell ran through its stock of the netbooks several months ago, it declined to manufacture more units."
3 seconds of clicking gives:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Celeron%26%23174%3B+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+2GB+Memory+/+250GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/9988402.p?id=1218205766215
for $240. There are dozens of others of course.
LOL.
Keep telling yourself that.
Whatever you do, dont visit the local electronics retailer, you may see something that would prove your delusion very wrong, like a lot of netbooks.
The thing is, a lot of people still buy netbooks, they are for people who dont want nor need a full sized laptop. People who travel and want to run windows programs. Ipads on the other hand require computers to do nearly anything, most people I've seen travailing with an Ipad also have a laptop or netbook to run the Ipad.
Why is Dell giving up Netbooks, simple, netbooks dont fit into the Dell business model. Dell makes most of its sales online, so they have to pay for individual shipping making them uncompetitive in this market. They sell very little through retail channels, When I head to the local electronics retailer (Dick Smith, Havey Norman, Bing Lee) I see a lot of Asus, Toshiba, Emachines (Acer) and HP netbooks at half the price of an Ipad. Combine this with the falling price of full sized laptops and the fact that the business market is their core market and businesses dont buy netbooks (or tablets).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
That's what the "ultrabook" class is trying to address. They (and devices like them that predate them, like the Samsung Series 9 or the Macbook Air) are largely replacing netbooks in terms of portability. They're typically 11 or 13 inches, and tend to weight 2.5 to 3.5 pounds or so. They're often lighter than a netbook, but have a much larger screen. They also tend to have proper dual-core processors, although they're the ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) kind which means they're clocked lower. Still, a dual-core i5 is still pretty decent, even if it's ULV.
The downside is price. There are tons of models available for under a grand, but some people want to get the portability for much less. We're not there yet, they still cost too much to make (all ultrabooks use SSDs, so the trick is the cost of enough flash to make that practical), but the cost will probably come down slowly over time.
Here in South America, netbooks outsell notebooks by a wide margin. They are much more capable than cheap tablets of the same price and much cheaper than actual fully featured computers. They are also used a lot by business people who don't really want to carry around a full computer.