Does 2012 Mark the End of the Netbook?

Voline writes "Digitimes reports that Asus and Acer will not be producing netbooks in 2013, signaling the end of a product category that Asus began five years ago with its Eee PC. The Guardian looks at the rise and fall of the netbook and posits some reasons for its end. Reasons include: manufacturers shifting from Linux to Windows, causing an increase in price that brought netbooks into competition with full-on laptops that offered better specs for not much more money; the global recession beginning in 2008; and the introduction of the iPad and Android tablets."

Comments

Re:2010 was the end

[kthreadd]

I bought a netbook because I wanted a really small laptop, and netbooks were the only ones I could find which had a nine inch screen. The problem was that everyone focused on making it as cheap as possible, and as a consequence used components with very low performance. I wouldn't mind a modern laptop with good performance at that size.

Re:Nah

[Trepidity]

Yeah, Apple's 11-inch devices are roughly a form factor that would be considered netbook-sized a few years ago. Slightly on the large end for screen size, since I think of 8-11" as typical netbook size, with the majority being 9-10". But spot-on for weight: the 11-inch Macbook Air weighs less than most 9-10-inch first-gen netbooks did. So the market got somewhat cannibalized from the top end by those kinds of devices. And from the bottom-end, the casual user who wants to browse the web occasionally in a coffee shop, everyone now has smartphones, and many people have iPads and similar.