IDC on Monday rolled out its 2010 PC industry predictions and became the second major research firm to note that mininotebooks, or netbooks, will hit the growth wall and plateau. Why? Portable PC prices are coming down and netbooks just don’t have the differentiation to compete with more full featured computing devices. Netbook prices will have growth rates of low double digits, just below the portable PC average, said IDC in a statement.
full story:Netbooks: Time to write the obit? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
This doesn't surprise me at all. I've considered the purchase of a netbook before as I feel that it would be an ideal machine to have sitting around in my living room to use for posting to forums such as these.
However, I don't feel the netbooks are ideal because
1). I want a very long battery life. I don't want to have to be on the cord all of the time
2). I want an extremely fast bootup.
Without either of the above, the netbook is no more useful to me than my laptop computer.
As far as I am concerned the little pests can definitely be buried alive! Hate the little things, more trouble than they are worth. It is more like a souped up mobile telephone than a computer.
Rest in pieces!
I like mine.
I got tired of lugging a larger laptop around, and I can carry my netbook and barely notice that I am carrying it.
I am a power user, but I still don't have a real need for the sort of power that I used to carry around... If I need real power, I am at home.
I will admit that I would prefer something with better video capabilities, and slightly larger than the current netbooks. I never expect to go back to the desktop replacement level of system I used to carry, but I am willing to split the difference.
I totally want a netbook. Just for checking my various forums, some light surfing, and I would have MediaMonkey and some tunes on it as well....any power-user type stuff I would use this desktop for.
Unfortunately, even with the tax refund, I decided I really can't afford to get one.
Well, my stand alone laptop with the 9 cell battery lasts 4-5 hours on a charge.
Ideally, for a netbook, I'd like a small computer that booted almost instantly (10 seconds or less) and lasted a good 30 hours on a charge. I realize what I want doesn't exist...and that's why I don't have a netbook.
I suspect that the iPad and the various other "slate" devices have been bought out because the business men at various computer companies can see that netbook sales have started to level out and decline.
They just want our money.
If I could afford anything I wanted I still think I'd go for a top of the range smart phone.
I just can't see the point of these almost computers.
But then again I'm not a business man.:)
I like notebooks and own since ten years now...I'm totally used to it and will never go over a 15,6" screen.
I'd love to have a netbook 10,1" screen along the one 14" i actually already own, just for little purposes and quick connect over the net, evaluating. This will wait of course some better times...but never know...some Atom processors got punched recently! I will go ahead.
As opposite to eschrada i just don't use mobile phone or smart phone anymore since quite a while. I did turn off their Mics!
Last edited by NoN; 09 Mar 2010 at 15:27.
Hi there
there are some great sub laptops around (bigger than netbooks) which have 10 to 11 inch screens. These give good enough video for most "on the road" type apps with typcally 3 hrs battery life. One of these might satisfy your needs - it's more powerful and better specced than a netbook and still powerful enough to be useful without being to large / heavy.
Actually I quite like the small netbooks --you can always RDP to a powerful remote system for running apps and you CAN connect an external monitor to most of them too for larger screen size.
Cheers
jimbo
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