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

Nah

[bobstreo]

Samsung ChromeBooks, Apple 11 inch devices. Tablets with keyboards not running windows 8 or 7 for everything else...

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.

No Vision

[amiga3D]

The problem is that they don't know how to make a netbook. I think there is a valid market for a device the size of the original Acer ZG5 netbook. The problem is that the hardware companies allowed Microsoft to define what a netbook was and not the market. I'd love something the size of my Acer ZG5 that had a quad i7 and 8GB of ram and came with linux installed but that never happened. Underpowered Atom based machines with 2GB ram at nearly the price of a dual core equiped laptop. Who wants that? No one and I can't believe they could not figure that out.

Re:No Vision

[Telvin_3d]

So... you want a macbook air?
Yes, the dimensions are slightly different, but it does come with a UNIX pre-installed.

Apple isn't perfect, but they are the only company that has focused on high end hardware instead of racing to the bottom of every market.

Re:No Vision

[Artraze]

> I'd love something the size of my Acer ZG5 that had a quad i7 and 8GB of ram

That's not a netbook, it's an ultrabook and it's expensive as hell:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127833
Yeah, it's 11.6" and not 8.9" but seeing as it's the same weight I don't really see that as a major issue. (I, in fact, consider it a big win since I've always thought the 9" keyboards were basically unusable.)

> Underpowered Atom based machines with 2GB ram at nearly the price of a dual core equiped laptop.

That is the essence of a netbook: An ultra low end computer that ran a browser, an email client and maybe a text editor. They were supposed to be cheap, but pretty much started at $200 and rose to $300 when Windows butted in. A decent laptop would run about $400, and they never really made sense for (or were intended for) anything but a sort of secondary travel-ish computer.
(BTW, seeing as the Eee PC started with Linux and kept a Linux version through most of it's revisions, I don't really know why you say Microsoft defined the netbook design...)

> Who wants that? No one and I can't believe they could not figure that out.

Uh, yeah, they figured it out and that's why they aren't making them.

But people _did_ want them. Not because they were good, but because they were cheap and somewhat because they were small. People saw them as proper laptops that were cheaper because they were smaller and not because they were just altogether cheaper. They would buy one thinking they saved $100, only to realize that they wasted $300 because it was to slow to actually do what they wanted.

I don't believe it was intentional... I think they were introduced as trying to be the cheapest possible computer; about half the price of a normal one. Partly for travel, partly for people who didn't do much, partly for just having a computer you can use look up that actor in the TV show you're watching, and it didn't have to be your 'main computer'.

But it turned out to be a stunning bait and switch: If you put Windows on it, you could charge $300. People would buy it thinking they were getting a new laptop. Then they'd be back in the store spending $500 six months later when they found out they needed a real machine. I think that's why they really 'took off' and were pushed so hard. They were just printing money by dramatically shortening an upgrade cycle that had stalled because proper computers had become fast enough.

Re:2010 was the end

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that's a fair assessment. I'm a system administrator and bought one of these to help around the server room. It's much more than a cheap toy.

Re:2010 was the end

[ModernGeek]

Yes, but you have to realize that sysadmins don't represent a large segment of the market.

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.

For me, the iPad killed the netbook

[Teckla]

I bought a netbook because I figured it could do everything a tablet could do, and more.

It turned out to be frustratingly slow, largely due to Windows 7 needing too many resources, Microsoft putting ridiculous limitations on what kind of specs a netbook could have while still qualifying for Windows Starter 7, and the agonizingly slow hard drive (which was accessed far too often due to Windows 7 needing lots of RAM -- while at the same time, Microsoft demanding it not be allowed to have much RAM).

Later, I bought an iPad, with a slower CPU and less RAM ... and I love it. Even though it's just a lowly iPad 2, the user experience is wonderful. I can't help but think Microsoft is partially responsible for making the iPad a success, because Microsoft were the ones responsible for ensuring a poor netbook experience. If my netbook experience hadn't sucked, I'd never have purchased an iPad.

Wish I hadn't wasted my money on a POS netbook.

Why I never bought a netbook...

[damn_registrars]

The list for me was pretty simple:

• Touchpads suck
• Windows sucks
• Few could competently handle a presentation and a spreadsheet or word processing document being open simultaneously
• The battery life wasn't that great compared to a regular laptop that cost and weighed only slightly more

Re:2010 was the end

[Baloroth]

I agree. The netbook was nothing but a quick bait and switch by manufacturers that wanted to make a quick buck off of the recession. The image of a business person using a netbook is just that. Users of netbooks were people with little money looking for a new toy, and nothing more.

They aren't a desktop replacement. Normal laptops can be, but netbooks aren't (although I have stretched one to it, with a 24" monitor and keyboard.... worked alright, slightly underpowered but not terribly so for simple work). They never were intended to be. They were intended to be super light-weight, super small, super mobile, and have long battery life with decent specs. For portable web use, nothing was better. Tablets? Sure, if you never intend to type anything and don't mind cradling it uncomfortably in your arms, plus paying quite a lot more for similar or less power.

What killed the netbook was the manufacturers. They wanted higher margins, which meant shoving in more features and power (mostly completely unnecessary). That kills the battery life, raises cost, and completely destroys the whole point of the device. But the original netbooks, for simple web usage, email browsing, and light document editing? Incredibly useful.

Re:It had to do with the Atom

[cheesybagel]

The reason for the downfall was indeed Microsoft. The original EeePC came with a Celeron processor (not Atom) and an SSD. It had a longer battery life. Microsoft's hardware requirements made sure you couldn't use a cheap low capacity SSD but had to use an hard-disk drive with more capacity that would still be relatively cheap just so it could run their bloatware. Then there was the licensing cost Microsoft imposed on the netbook vendors which eliminated any margin the vendors were supposed to have.

I love netbooks

[bytesex]

They serve as ideal small computers in all sorts of laboratory set-ups. Use them as network line-debuggers, use them as front-end mockups - I just love them!

Re:2010 was the end

[Scoth]

The funny thing is I still take a lot of my work meeting notes on a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 that was given to me last year. I constantly get people asking me what it is, where to get one, etc. Its keyboard isn't amazing, but it beats a lot of the add-on keyboards people are using (or trying to use) with their tablets, plus it's a lot more durable. It's also running a full Linux setup which I've used for some light development, writing sd cards for a couple embedded projects, and had no trouble with a lot of USB peripherals.

It may not be as cool as a lot of new tablets, and its battery life may not be up to what it was when it was new, but it's been a great thing for me. I have a 7" Android tablet too and haven't found a decent keyboard for it yet that isn't more than I want to pay. But the tablet does do media a lot better, Youtube and Netflix and such. So I tend to keep the netbook for work and the tablet for lying in bed watching something on Netflix. /csb

WaitAminute

[folderol]

What's all this 'was' and 'were'? My eee901 is still going strong as an industrial tool (running debian squeeze) that helps me diagnose/configure/monitor all sorts of BIG machines. Battery life is fine, so is screen brightness and resolution. It quite happily bounces around on top of said machines while I plug in Ethernet, USB, serial over USB, and projectors (for display and education purposes). Back at the office I'm spoiled for choice as to which method I use the transfer the stored data. Oh, and this little baby, plus mouse, various leads etc. fits nicely in a padded sandwich bag.

Apple Shareholders

[tuppe666]

racing to the bottom of every market.

That is called competition and its why Apple logo is not selling computers anymore. Apple had their best quarter in 5 years and only sold 1 in 20 computers that has since has dropped, its market share for phones has dropped from a high of 23% now down to 14.9 and tablets have hit 50% hard. Its market cap had the value of 12 Dell companies wiped off its market cap in three months.

The reality is now that tablets; smartphones are simply commodity products, and its products are neither innovative or unique. It has to compete like everybody else...and that is price [and product range] as its high mark-ups become unsustainable . Seriously a macbook air...with its low resolution screen that costs the same as 5 nexus tablets they are out of touch.

As for the touch being Unix...seriously that old chestnut, Android is too I suppose??

Re:Apple Shareholders

[rolfwind]

I'm typing this up on a W7 i7 desktop I built myself. I don't wanna be accused of Apple fanboiism. Like most here, probably, I assemble my computers -- in my case mostly because my PSU is rocksolid and I can reuse certain components like my video card (not a gamer), SSD, harddrives, Blu-ray reader, and cardreader my from the last computer. But more than any of that, so I don't have to put up with the shitton of crapware that comes on a new computer. Last time I bought an Acer for someone (2007, not sure how it's these days), it was a fucking nightmare and next to impossible to remove (not to mention no recovery CD - that was $20 extra + s/h).

I think your post a bit ridiculous. Apple is selling better than before, sales slowed due to size. It's easy to grow 1000% when starting from next to nothing (smartphone market, not the company itself).

Don't mistake an expanding market/dropping market share as Apple failing. It's inevitable in every market: there are luxury manufacturers and and those that sell to the masses. Rarely can a company do both well. Even among car makers, like Honda and Toyota, they eventually had to make up a new marque (Acura and Lexus) to bridge that gap semi-successfully.

Japanese companies used to be all about marketshare too and by chasing every sale, even at a loss, they gained little but the weatherwave loyalty of people who now buy chinese products because they are 10 cents cheaper.

Apple already went the marketshare route in the 90s. They licensed out their OS and it was a disaster for them. Now it probably would be even worse - they are not a hardware company in the traditional sense and tehy will get trounced playing that game.

Apple is all about comfortable margins. They still have one advantage others don't, which they sell. Ecosystem and integration. Someone that buys an iPhone is likely to spring for an iPad sometime, more than any other tablet. After they get a tablet, they might go for notebook. It all works together rather seamlessly for the average bullshit that average people do. Developers of both physically accessories and software like it since there are few major models to target.

Apple has it's customers and they pay the premium and are apparently happy more or less. Since it's no longer the early 90s, marketshare doesn't matter that much anymore in terms of program availabilty except for video games (which has largely gone to the console market anyway - Apple is notebooks more than desktops and it's unlikely hardcore gamers are going to rely on those anytime soon anyway).

Or like my parents. They got an Apple notebook (completely devoid of the bullshit crapware mentioned above), it's been way more rock solid software wise than their windows PCs (admittedly pre-W7), the notebook never fucks up/hangs in standby/hibernate or whatever and they bought the rest of the Apple stuff as they went along. I didn't have to babysit their computer while visiting. Win/win.

Apple is never going to be dell, and emulating Dell was never the reason why they got so big.

I love my EEEPC.

[hendrikboom]

I'm still running my ASUS 1000HE eeepc as my everyday computing device. I chose it because it was the first EEEPC that really was completely Linux-compatible, needing no proprietary drivers at all. It's easy to carry around, it runs fast enough for most of what I want to do, and I run Debian testing on it. I've never had a problem with its battery life, and am glad that ASUS emphasized good battery life instead of overpowering it with hyper-fast processors and graphics -- mostly unnecessary for what I do. Yes, there's still a Windows lurking in a small corner on the hard drive, used only for running Adobe Digital Editions because Adobe broke their promise to implement it for Linux once the publishing industry standardised on it.

I'm not sure I want much changed about it, except maybe a bigger hard drive. But I do use sshfs to access a bulk storage machine in my basement, and that seems to take care of that. sshfs works even when I'm in a coffee shop.

I use it mostly for writing English text and for software development. It's the machine I wrote and debugged my Pixel cup Challenge game on last summer. It contains my working monotone and git repositories and a variety of programming language implementations.

I could use a larger screen, but only if the larger screen fits into the same form factor for carrying around in my backpack. Looking at a 18-inch screen can be good, but lugging it around isn't. I do a fair amount of writing and programming in coffee shops.

If I were to have to replace it, I'd want another like it. Too bad if they're disappearing from the market.

It's wonderful little machine.

If they really want an over 10x price premium

[tepples]

there was no large market for ultra-portables with no power.

"No power"? An Atom could do everything that a comparably clocked P4 could do. I use mine for lightweight Python programming. I bought a 10" because it fits in a bag that isn't an obvious "mug me" magnet.

People buying ultra-portables were used to paying $5000

Once my $300 10" laptop finally breaks, I'll be severely disappointed if I have to pay $5,000 to replace it.

Netbooks can run PC applications. Tablets can't.

[tepples]

There's a difference. Netbooks can run PC operating systems such as Windows and GNU/Linux, which means they can run PC applications. The vast majority of currently popular tablets can't; instead, they run a "mobile operating system" designed around all maximized windows all the time, no scripting or automation, and in many cases a walled garden.

Netbooks are alive and well in China

[Animats]

Search Alibaba for "Netbook": "185,881 Product(s) from 2,239 Supplier(s)". You can buy individual items. "Hot sell Mini Notebook 10.2 inch laptop Atom D425 Processor 1.8G Memory 1GB HDD 160G netbook wifi camera - US $217.00 / piece ", from Shenzhen Lihaicheng Tech Co., Ltd. Many sellers will ship directly to the US. Quality may be iffy, but there are seller reputations, and it's probably no worse than eBay.

Some of these are probably the same machines the big names were selling.

They died when the definition of Netbook changed.

[markdavis]

The Netbook category was created by Asus when they made a machine that was smaller than typical, lower priced than typical, had a longer battery life than typical, had solid state storage (which was not typical), and ran Linux. The EEE-1000 (with no letter behind it) was just a fantastic machine for the money and was probably the last true Netbook.

The Netbook died the moment the manufacturers added hard drives and replaced Linux with MS-Windows. Because at that point, they were no longer Netbooks, they were just crippled, slow, MS-Windows notebooks. They lost what made them different. The MS-Windows slowed the machine down to being unusable. It also jacked the price up a bit (and with the low prices, even a bit was significant). The hard drive made it fragile and less battery friendly and even slower still.

I was waiting FOR YEARS for a replacement for the EEE-1000; a true Netbook without the MS-Windows tax, and with a bump of specs to match the year (more RAM, more CPU, larger solid state storage, more res, but similar price and same form-factor and battery life). It never came.

Oh well.

Re:We can't have anything nice

[hazem]

Netbooks and tablets, while seeming to be similar, are really designed for very different uses. A tablet is designed to conusme media and it's really good for that. A netbook is essentially a scaled-down laptop that allows you to produce things as well as consume them.

I have an Acer netbook, and a Nexus 7. The tablet is great as a "carry it around with me" computing device that lets me browse the internet, keep up with my email, write short replies, etc. It's also great for watching videos, and even reading books. Even better, it does all this and will last 8 hours or more on a single charge. This is fantastic if you're spending a day in an airport and on planes. It's an entertainment device that also allows for some productivity. And sure, I can do much of this on my small andriod phone, having the larger screen makes it enjoyable to use.

The netbook, on the other hand, is a lightweight and portable working computer. It's great if you have some place to sit down and actually use it. But it's not so handy when you're standing on a train or trying to look something up quickly. I use mine for school and have done quite a bit of programming on it. I put Linux Mint on it, and frankly, I think it IS sexy, especially when I can run Virtualbox to do whatever windows things I need to do.

If I had to give up one, I'd grudgingly give up the tablet. Though I'd strongly consider giving up the netbook and my larger laptop (home computer) for a smaller but more powerful laptop and keep the tablet.

It's not a matter of people being sheep, but wanting to do different things. A friend of mine was complaining for quite a while that her old laptop was slow and wanted me to work on it. She got a larger android phone and stopped talking about her laptop. Pretty much everything she needed to do computer-wise was on her phone - and for her, a netbook wouldn't fit her needs as well as her min-tablet phone.