Back in the olden days I used to read Joey Devilla’s blog all the time. He was – and is – known as Accordion Guy and he produced consistently cool content. Well, I just stumbled on him again and found that he’s doing great, philosophical posts on tech. Take his examination of netbooks vs. smartphones, for example.
He compares netbooks and smartphones to two brands of fast food pie. Netbooks are sub-par pies made to look like a real slice of pie – you know you’re not getting good pie but the appearance of a pie shape and crust creates cognitive dissonance and makes you think you’re getting screwed (which, in most cases, you are – netbooks are sub-par notebooks and horrible “communication devices”). Smartphones are like McDonald’s pies in that they don’t look like pie – they look like a pared down and highly subjective vision of pie. You have everything in there – the filling, the crust, whatever else – but you know you’re not buying real pie and you can sit back and “enjoy” it on that level. Netbooks are faking it while smartphones have no pretensions of pie-like goodness. With me so far?
This analogy maps directly to netbooks and smartphones. Netbooks look like little laptops but when you try to use them like laptops they fail – the Dell Adamo is an excellent example. They’re not powerful enough to be real laptops yet people expect a little power from something with a screen and a keyboard. The MacBook Air is another example – it’s nigh on unusable in its current configuration yet folks expect a true 2-GHz MacBook crammed into an Air case. This is simply not the situation. Even Intel’s goal of calling them Low Cost Small Notebook PCs is ludicrous. The low-cost is right, but what about low-value?
Then you have smartphones. These things SHOULDN’T be internet browsing tablets but they are. I surf more Internet on the iPhone than ever. It’s a great one-off source for a quick fix. When was the last time you put your smartphone down in the kitchen with the browser pointed to a recipe? And when was the last time you put your netbook down next to the flour and eggs? I suspect you used your smartphone more frequently for these one-off tasks than your netbook.
What do manufacturers have to do? They could go the Nokia route buy building little touchscreen devices or they could up their prices and put actual hardware into tiny cases as opposed to bargain basement processors and chips. Either way, netbooks will go the way of the dodo, especially considering they cost a pittance and can’t be making anyone any cash. Quoth Joey:
When people buy a smartphone, which they’ve been doing like mad, they’re buying their primary mobile phone. It’s the mobile phone and computing platform that they’re using day in and day out and the device that they’re pulling out of their pockets, often to the point of interrupting conversations and crashing the trolley they’re operating.
When people buy a netbook, they’re often not buying their primary machine. It’s a second computer, a backup device that people take when their real machine – which is often a laptop computer that isn’t much larger or more expensive – seems like too much to carry. It’s a luxury that people might ditch if the current economic situation continues or worsens and as the differences between laptops and netbooks vanish. Netbooks, as a blend of the worst of both mobile and laptop worlds, will be a transitional technology; at best, they’ll enjoy a brief heyday similar to that of the fax machine.
Netbooks are racing to be smartphones and smartphones aren’t racing anywhere – they’re just getting better.
As someone who uses his netbook as a primary portable computer, i couldn’t disagree more. I don’t own a smartphone, so I can’t do a lot of surfing from my pocket, but I think netbooks compete with laptops fairly well for most people. Lighter, smaller, cheaper, longer battery life, what’s not to like? I’ve yet to say “I wish this thing were more powerful.” Obviously that says a lot about my usage habits, but the fact remains – what most people are doing on a $1000 laptop can be done on a $400 netbook with few tradeoffs.
I agree. I have the NC10 and it’s a dual boot XP and Jaunty. I’m able to program/work on it using Ubuntu and it’s also great for entertainment on XP while traveling.
Why did John Biggs stopped reading his blog NOW?
Why DON’T you own a smartphone? Instead of spending $300 on a netbook, buy a smartphone using that money. Problem solved.
Don’t want to pay a monthly fee for a data plan? Buy an iPod Touch instead.
Because the screen is too small and the speed is too slow?
I would agree with you except smartphones still suck. I own the iPhone. Web browsing is still too slow and too small. I don’t want to have to spread my fingers to make a tiny chunk of page larger.
I’m going to use my smartphone to make a note so i can remember to look up something later on a REAL computer.
The smartphone, for me, is still mostly for email, apps, maps, Twitter, games, notes, and rarely, calls. But browsing can wait.
Really, the spectrum is incomplete. It should go past Smartphones over to regular cell-phones since smartphones are really a cell-phone that tries to do more – it’s the Nutri-grain bar that has gotten bigger, added a crusty shell in order to attempt to provide the “pie-ness” of a pie, but in the form-factor of a bar. . .
I can’t stand doing stuff on my cell phone aside from messaging and desperate-need browsing – but aside from that, it’s a friggin cell phone. . .even though it’s a smart one.
Don’t “pinch” the text, just double tap on the text and it spreads that column to the widest it can be. I wish my browser on my computer attached to my big screen TV did this!
McDonalds pies arent pies by the way there turnovers.
How about we call netbooks what they are are in the average consumers eye cheap ass, limited ass tiny laptop.
I have a Smartphone AND two traditional Laptops. I use my new Asus 1000HE Eee pc Netbook more than the rest. (9 hour battery life!) Check Emails, Bid on Ebay, Watch YouTube on the Train. I Create PowerPoint Presentations on the Road So easily. I view it as a disposable machine. If I lose it or Drop it. It’s less than $400 to Replace. That is great piece of mind. I broadcast a Live Streaming Net Show from the Built in Cam and Microphone. Easy Skype Calls. It’s my Favorite Toy.
I’m about to buy my first Netbook and your comments are the first ones that make sense! I have a first gen iPhone and I can’t stand the thing to do ANYTHING but play games, make calls and text. (It’s a texting god!). But I am traveling and staying put for a few days at a time. My wife’s 17″ laptop was tried first and the damn thing is so heavy I had to get an extra suitcase for it! I’m hoping that a little 2.5lb netbook is going to foot the bill. Thanks for your help!
Have to disagree Jason, as I think a netbook is fully capable of 80% of what more people need a computer for. As some of the other comments said, the iPhone has a really good browser for a smartphone, but it’s still not as good as even the cheapest netbook with Chrome on it. Plus, real text entry is a pain on an iPhone
I disagree on a couple of levels. First, netbooks aren’t designed to compete with either laptops or smartphones. They are intended to provide entry level computing at an affordable price, which they do extremely well.
Second, for accomplishing real work (e.g., editing documents) on a small platform, having a netbook I can slide into my purse is infinitely preferred to using a tiny smartphone screen and keyboard.
Perfectly right. Netbooks don’t do either task well. They’re a crappy half solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
I don’t need full web browsing on the go, I need to be able to check important information and get back to doing stuff. The iPhone does this perfectly (don’t forget you don’t “browse” much on the iPhone, you use an app to get quick information).
I don’t need ultra-portability when I’m at home or can set up at a desk. My desktop or MacBook Pro does this perfectly. My MBP is only a little heavier than a Mini9 and fits perfectly in the bag I take with me anyway.
Why get a netbook again?
Give me a touch tablet that costs <$200 that I can have for house control, ebooks, simple browsing while watching TV (”Who’s that actor again?”), and music playing. I don’t need a crappy $400 laptop with a too small screen and unusably small keyboard that gets slightly more battery life than my real laptop.
Excellent piece of linkbait techcrunch, write something so incendiary and flat out wrong people will have to read it. I guess traffic is traffic.
It’s not wrong, depending on your point of view. I have no idea why anyone would waste money on a netbook with poor build quality that might last a year when I could save three times as much money to buy an actual laptop that will last four times as long.
How is this wrong? Think 5 years from now,
think iphone/Pre/G1 version 5, these companies will
continue to innovate and smooth the road to
internet and applications on a (true) mobile
device and think of laptops 5 years from now,
They as well will continue to become more
powerfule, cheaper and have better battery
life…where is there room for the netbook?
Netbook and then e-reader (Kindle, etc) all I think would become piece of junk in near future!
The way to go forward is powerful mobile with bigger and better browsing capabilities!
Wrong. Ultraportable is good, and so is room for both hands, i.e. a QWERTY keyboard. I use one all the time. Meetings. Etcetera.
I can’t disagree more with all the comments saying that netbooks do their job well. I have desktops both at home and at work, so I need something to carry with me when I travel (which happens fairly often).
My needs :
* VPN to the office
* edit documents and/or code
* surf the web
* read mail
The netbook does all 4. Granted, the keyboard is imperfect (but, hey so are all laptops keyboards).
I don’t even want to try to edit documents on a smartphone (and i’m not even talking about code)
The laptop gives me like 2 1/2 hours of work while the netbook gives me 6, weighs 10 pounds vs 2 for the netbook, costs 1000$ vs 400$ for the netbook.
Why would I take a laptop ?
Well, I disagree (owning a smartphone, a palmtop, a netbook, and a laptop): the netbook is by far the piece of hardware I use most frequently (apart from making “real” phone calls :)). It is a great piece of hardware when I go to meetings, or when I need to lecture, when I commute (and want to listen to a radio while surfing or doing a little code programming) or when I am in bed and want to watch a movie off the house LAN server.
I wonder: do you, John, own a netbook? And if so, which one, and for what purposes did you buy it?
I actually use my netbook as my secured online access device. This means I only use my netbook on trusted sites or sites that I’m passing personal and financial information and never use it to surf. Obviously, the kids are off limit to my netbook.
Different people have different needs. Netbooks don’t work for some people. But they do work for a lot of others. A Mac doesn’t work for me but I still think that they are great machines. I don’t bash them just because I don’t find a need for them.
Amen.
Comparing netbooks to the Jesus-phone is actually quite appropriate as they occupy a similar area of functionality, ultra-portable quasi-computing.
iPhone: You get a phone, less computing options, expensive
Netbook: You don’t get a phone, more computing options, not as expensive.
Regular phones are on the cheap, so getting more computing options for less money (no expensive phone, no expensive plan, wi-fi is basically everywhere) is actually quite a benefit.
I see the author’s point, and in his life, netbooks are useless. But the author isn’t the rest of the world. Good opinion, though.
Well, speaking as a non-gear head, merely filled with techno-lust, I think spending $100 a month on a cellular data plan is the only part of this current schema that is ‘transitional’.
Here’s why I’d want a $200 netbook vs $2000 laptop or a smartphone.
Take it everywhere without worry about spilled drinks, theft or other damage. Get a real keyboard for typing. FLASH (need i say more) :)
For Real? Cause I bought a netbook and sold my primary laptop and desktop and couldn’t have made a better choice. I have had zero problems, the things are bogged down with useless features, they start up almost instantly. I have yet to find a negative thing about it; and with that price you can’t go wrong.
I think the thing this article misses is that the two have very different goals.
Your iphone is a data consumption device.
Your netbook is a data creation device.
Try writing a blog post or tweaking a website on your iphone.
bingo.
I love my netbook.
Fantastic for travelling (for meetings/presentations using using the RGB out and for entertainment on a decent sized screen).
The weight, size and battery are what make it so fantastic.
Like several of your readers, I agree with the basic premise of Joey’s netbook analysis. I own a Samsung NC10 Special Edition which provides >8 hours of battery life, a reasonable 10 inch screen, a 93% sized keyboard, bluetooth and wifi and a 160 GB hard drive. At 2.8 pounds it is a third the weight of my laptop. The netbook is perfect as a traveling device allowing the user to check emails, surf the web, work on spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations and word processing, etc. The things most business people require. today. To make the case that are sub-standard when compared to other computers ignores the high quality/high performance/high cost benefit ratio netbooks deliver.
Like several of your readers, I disagree with the basic premise of Joey’s netbook analysis. I own a Samsung NC10 Special Edition which provides >8 hours of battery life, a reasonable 10 inch screen, a 93% sized keyboard, bluetooth and wifi and a 160 GB hard drive. At 2.8 pounds it is a third the weight of my laptop. The netbook is perfect as a traveling device allowing the user to check emails, surf the web, work on spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations and word processing, etc. The things most business people require. today. To make the case that are sub-standard when compared to other computers ignores the high quality/high performance/high cost benefit ratio netbooks deliver.
How could a tech blogger have such closed minded ideas about gadgets that he can’t imagine how a netbook can be extremely useful… even preferable… to a full blown laptop or a Smartphone in some situations?
I think the problem is that some netbooks are being marketing, and purchased, as primary Net devices. Then again, if all you do is surf the Web and type email, a netbook would be perfectly capable as long as you find it comfortable for your level of use.
Most of us see the Netbook as a filling a niche that needed to be filled: A lightweight Net appliance with long battery life and low heat. Let me illustrate: I love my iPhone, but the small screen makes it less than ideal for reading lengthy online articles. I also have a laptop that is powerful enough to run Photoshop CS4, but it gets awfully hot (uncomfortable in the lap) and battery life is only a couple of hours. If I’m just surfing the Web, using a cloud-based app like Google Docs, or writing an email; why do I need to use my 15-inch ball-baking laptop that only gives me two hours of battery time? The netbook is perfect for this type of activity. Keep it by the sofa for quick Web access. Keep it in the kitchen for looking up recipes. Take it to the coffee house where you know there is Wifi. Just don’t expect it to replace a full-size laptop or desktop that has a larger display, more comfortable keyboard, and more powerful hardware.
While I’m perfectly happy with the ultraportable laptop form factor of current Netbooks, I’m very interested to see what Apple will unveil. An extra-large iPod Touch would be like a super-Kindle XL. I might miss the keyboard though… a touch screen keyboard is fine for the iPhone, but I wouldn’t want to type Google Docs or email all day long on one. I’m hoping they will market it with a bluetooth fold-up keyboard… or some kind of slide-out keyboard.
A little fill in exercise
“He compares Toyota Corollas and motorcycles to two brands of fast food pie.Toyota Corollas are sub-par pies made to look like a real slice of pie – you know you’re not getting good pie but the appearance of a pie shape and crust creates cognitive dissonance and makes you think you’re getting screwed (which, in most cases, you are -Toyota Corollas are sub-par cars and have pathetic horsepower). Motorcycles are like McDonald’s pies in that they don’t look like pie – they look like a pared down and highly subjective vision of pie. You have everything in there – the filling, the crust, whatever else – but you know you’re not buying real pie and you can sit back and “enjoy” it on that level.Toyota Corollas are faking it while motorcycles have no pretensions of pie-like goodness. With me so far?”
John- do not confuse power with utility.
I have an iPhone and a Laptop. I am personally sick of carrying it (laptop) around everywhere with me, since it’s huge, heavy and consumes a lot of power, so I also have to take with me a huge power brick. If I need a powerful computer, I just use a desktop. But most of the time all I do is watch videos, surf the web, write documents and a tad of picture editing. A 1.6 Ghz netbook would be more than enough, and it would power me for longer.
I don’t see any problems with netbooks, being not too far away from notebooks speaking in power, but much more advanced speaking in mobility. That’s why I’d love to exchange my laptop for a good S10 someday.
For me the value is in traveling. Traveling for leisure that is.
I like having a cheap secondary laptop. I can take it overseas easily and I dont have a second thought about losing it or it getting stolen since I make sure there is no data of a financial or identity nature.
I like the freedom of chilling on a beach somewhere and typing in my travel blog and not worrying about getting sand in my $1,500 laptops keyboard. It’s got the phone beat hands down since I dont get reception in China or Thailand or Germany.
Plus works great for email and skype communications and lets me save and edit all the photos I take.
I would say i woudnt ever use a notebook for work purposes or for playing games. It’s a luxury item, a secondary laptop that does have a niche that it fits into very nicely.
Netbooks are a way for a mature industry to grow revenues. That’s it.
It’s a cut in function and price.
It’s why burger joints sell a small, medium and large coke. For only $0.50 extra you can upgrade to a large coke. And for another $0.50 you can get a double cheese burger. Same thing with netbooks.
There’s a reason why the netbook market is the fastest growing part of the PC biz. Because they are hundreds of dollars less than a full blown laptop and the corporate market stalled out.
Soon, they will offer a combo pack. Buy 2 laptops and get a net book free. Or buy one desktop and get netbook free.
It’s bait and switch. It’s a marketing gimmic, but you clowns will argue about this issue until the end of time.
ok, not the perfect machine yet. it’s like it usually is: a new thing, takes a while and it gets better and better, and we’ll get happier too. but what about making the best out what we have right now, while we’re waiting for better things to come along?! remember, there was so much talk about the $100 laptop for the rest of the world, not too long back… well, here it is, almost, kind of…in emerging markets and wherever else there might be a market, package it with a cellphone deal, make it $1 for the netbook in addition to your phone when you sign a 2-year contract with your provider, have millions of new users connect to the internet.
the potential gains in those emerging markets should justify the cost of expansion of 3 or whatever G infrastructure worldwide, since that is so much cheaper than landline, not to mention reach and expandability.
and while that happens, we will impatiently wait until the smart people develop new and better machines for us here, which will surely come our way soon..they always do.
I thought you were talking about Crazy Joe Devola.
What is it that netbooks can’t do that you want them to do?
Put me down on the ‘disagree’ side.
Your point, that netbooks can’t do everything a laptop can’t? Of course not, but I’ll trade some processing power for a 10 hour battery, 2-3lb total weight and the ruggedness of a netbook on any flight. In any train, and in plenty of other situations.
Netbooks aren’t meant as only computers, they’re 2nd, 3rd, 4th computers. Replace your portable DVD player with a netbook. Have a house netbook to grab when you go to the DMV, airport, or on a trip. Grab it for a road trip in the car to give to the kids. Pair it with a 3g card and it’s an awesome tool.
You seem to have completely missed the point of a netbook, and I doubt you’ve owned a decent netbook (dell mini, nc10, etc) for longer than a few days.
Sure, netbooks have a little way to go. Nvidia Ion will really help performance, and if MS would wake up, we’d see some better power with more powerful and dual core Atom processors for those that want them.
I feel as I should write a letter expressing my outrage to Asus and immediately return my 1000HE netbook in light of this stunningly relevant blog post.
Or I could continue hauling it around with me at the drop of the hat (thanks, 9 hour battery!) and just forget about this article.
iphone doesnt even have flash let alone silverlight! when it supports the “real web” and all of its plug ins then you can compare it to netbooks. i love watching HD MLB games and HD HULU shows on my netbook. netbooks FTW!
I totally agree with this article, but I also don’t care.
I LOVE my iPhone; I have probably never loved an electronic device more than that little thing. Also, I really love my netbook for the obvious reasons: size, functions (writing and internet), and battery life. Also, as a writer, I NEED a keyboard. We may be making marked jumps in the haptic key technology arena, but the fact is, we’re not there yet. There is still not a single good alternative to the traditional keyboard. Will it disappear? Sure, but until it does, we NEED the thing to operate.
The netbook may just be a transitionary product, but we need this product to get to where we’re going. In fact, it appears that the rush on Apple’s “iPad” seems to be in direct response to the huge market spike netbooks have made. Will Apple come up with another miracle machine that will change the market forever? Probably, but they wouldn’t have jumped on it without the netbook’s quick rise to fame. (Though we can’t forget that TechCrunch was really the front runner of the internet tablet, and I do hope to see that available one day).
Go ahead, condemn the netbook. I’m right along side you in your argument. But right now it’s the hot product — and for good reasons — and the future of personal computing will rest on the shoulders of the demand for the netbook. You can’t escape that.
(Oh and funny thing is we just had our netbook out next to the flour looking up a recipe. Can’t say that’s the norm, though.)
Netbooks have their place, but, as everything in tech, they’re also going to eveolve. I personally would love a netbook with a double screen: on one side, the typical LCD, and on the other an e-ink screen but with swivel function so I can use either one while typing or reading/taking notes. Any netbook manufacturer reading this, please? Make it touchscreen too. Thanks :)
Biggs, dear:
I wonder if you ever has used a netbook.
I’ve been using an Asus EeePC1000HA for three months now and it is definitely a very reliable machine. Most of the time I don’t need my Dell laptop at all.
As to comparing netbooks to smartphones, most smartphones sucks (including iPhone) with the exception of BlackBerries, for e-mail. In general web navigation is poor with those tiny screens…
BTW, I’m sure we all accept your excuses and will give you a second chance with a netbook.
Yes, we know in advance: you’ll fall in love.
Out of 39 comments so far, about 3 agree with your opinion. That, John Biggs, means you SUCK. LOL. Please MA, can you not find better talent? If not, we’d love for you to come back to TC.
I looked at the net-books, looked at cell phones, hated my suitcase carrying laptop and my old Razor; now I use blackberry bold, with the data. I personally don’t like the touch screen interface, my son has iPhone; I can text as fast as typing at my desktop.
The only big problem the Cell phones have is the Vertical Monopoly of device, operating system, cell towers, and phone network. This is like Microsoft owning your computer, OS, and Internet.
ATT is very afraid of full WiFi on its phones
Holy shit, John Biggs posted an inflammatory border-ing on trolling article that’s all opinion and no fact? I feel like I should be getting my mic turned off n-
Wrong-o dude.
Reasons why, as a student and writer, my netbook is my most valued tool:
1. Small enough to be easily portable. No more lugging around ye olde 10 lbs of laptop and 2 lbs of cord. The battery lasts long enough I don’t even need to pack around a cord for the day.
2. Big enough to be useful. No more squinting at that damned tiny iphone screen with its very limited visibility and usability.
3. Economical. If I dump a cup of coffee into it, it gets stolen or I leave it in a motel room I’m only out a few bucks. I also don’t have to shell out a ton of money on monthly fees as with the iphone.
4. Well rounded for common uses. I primarily need complete web access, office tools, photo editing and the occasional game of solitaire. I get all of this with my netbook. I get maybe twenty percent of this on my iphone, if I can make my giant fingers do the right things.
5. I can take notes in class and get many of my textbooks in PDF format for less money. My book bag has a small notepad, two writing instruments and my netbook. Thats all. It weighs about a tenth of what it used to.
6. No more story outlines on paper napkins. As a writer, ideas often pop into my head, and usually when I’m out and about. My netbook is small and light enough that I just toss it in a bag and take it where ever I go. I’m a much more organized writer when I can take my filing cabinet, my writing paper and my refrences where ever I go. Standard laptops are just too bulky, heavy and expensive to bother with and if you’ve ever tried to write anything on an iphone, well, I’m sure it ended in frustration and Excedrin.
People buy an iphone to have a neat toy to play with and show off. People that are serious deadly about their business or need to play 3D games every second of the day get a laptop.
The rest of us can do just fine on a netbook, as I suspect we will in increasing numbers in the future.
This post is so esoteric and incoherent that I was immediately looking for Steve Gillmor’s byline.
I appreciate this concept, but it only looks at a slice of the contimuum.
I’ve thought this same thing before, but smart phones are instead in the middle ground (”zone of suck”) between dumb phones and netbooks.
They’re essentially hybrid devices that don’t accomplish the web browsing capability of a netbook nor the portability of a smaller phone.
So netbooks can basically be viewed depending on where they are in this continuum. The middle is a bad place to be But the products you’re comparing determines where that middle is.
First, I found the comment in the article about having a recipe open on the smart phone funny. My experience is exactly the opposite. I bring my netbook in the kitchen all the time with a recipe open on it. It is small enough to fit nicely on the counter yet large enough that I can quickly glance at it to follow a recipe. I also own a Blackberry Storm that I wouldn’t dream of doing that with.
Second, why all of the harsh criticism of netbooks? I got mine 4 months ago to use as something to take with me on the go and it is now my full time computer. I don’t know what you all are doing with them that they are so under powered but I have yet to come across a task that I haven’t been able to accomplish with mine. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Storm but it really fails for certain tasks that I love using my netbook for.
Mission accomplished, Biggs. Bravo.
Am travelling with Macbook Air, and Samsung NC10 as an experiment; Late at night, I find myself using the samsung not the air to write this post. Next time, I just take the netbook.
iPhone + asus netbook=joy
i love & use both.
You underestimate the importance of “low cost”.
Many people who would not otherwise ever have a computer HAVE NETBOOKS.
Smartphones are just too expensive for the majority.
I am not here to argue with you guys cause i might be too biased and you can only have a good discussion when you knowledge and background is pretty much on the same level.
this article tells me, that you just have no clue about netbooks, the markets and it’s users.
I just hope you don’t have to make a living from consulting people about mobile computing :)
I completely disagreed with another article on TC which talked about Twitter being the new RSS. Most of the comments on that were negative and questioned the author’s criteria.
Surprisingly, most of the comments on this entry are also negative, but I do agree with the author.
Netbooks are nothing but a portable version of your grandma’s computer. There’s nothing really amazing about them. They’re more portable because they’re slower and subpar when compared to the performance and power of a laptop.
I agree entirely with the zone of suck.
I guess you are living in denial then… Twitter is the new RSS and Netbooks are the carriers for the breakthrough of 3G.
I think it is quite amazing that a platform with 2.4W CPU can do 99% of the average users work. Oh and it can even playback 1080p while having 8 hours of battery life. Try this with your grandma’s computer…
as i said earlier, i am not here to argue or educate people. In 2008 more netbooks got sold than iPhones. 2009 will prepare the step into the cloud which will be supported by dozen of 3G Netbooks in 2010..
whether you just have no clue what you are talking about or you just…. well that makes kinda sense…. wanna sell a tablet pc and just complain about the netbook concept to push your own product. :p
Sascha, Twitter and RSS are two completely different things. They’re so far apart they can’t even be compared. I actually posted something on that in our blog.
My idea of portability breakthrough is when someone comes up with a product that is able to do everything bigger devices do. That’s when I go “wow, this is cool”.
Coming up with smaller, less powerful, underperforming machines is not a breakthrough, it is the obvious and it is in the zone of suck.
I have a 12″ laptop that has 3 GB RAM, a 2.1 Ghz AMD processor, 250 GB HD, etc. On that laptop I can run everything I use in my powerful desktop. My laptop, except for the screensize, is very much like my desktop. That’s portability right there.
I do think that 2009 is the year of the Cloud and I really wish to move towards that direction. However, you and I both know that to get cloud-based software to do what regular applications do you need processing power and RAM, among other things.
Once that happens, we won’t have netbooks. We’ll have smaller laptops and not netbooks. There is a difference.
Netbooks are bound to disappear as soon as we can cram more power in a 10″ computer. Then we’ll be back to calling them laptops.
again, i think you have to open your mind a little bit. Maybe it is just me but i have to know what is going on in the cloud. What are people talking about on the internet.
Twitter gives me the chance to get to know this in seconds. Define your keywords for a twitter search in any app like Tweetdeck, Twhirl or whatever and you know it in seconds, while RSS seems to be slow like hell.
I have around 500 mobile computing and netbook sources in my rss reader but for the last 4 months i haven’t opened it anymore! Why? Cause all these sources are also on twitter and it’s like a “just in time” newsfeed and stream. I prefer to have a time advantage and i prefer to see, which news are creating a buzz on the web. Twitter is the news source of tomorrow…. no, it is the news source of now! RSS Readers are pretty nice tools but not if time is a factor. I prefer to get updated just in time! ;)
Might i ask you how many netbooks you have tested in your life? I think i had about a hundret+ and i will show you things on my netbook that will blow your mind when we are talking about performance, cause you are in this same narrowminded ratrace the hardware industry forced most of the users into in the last decades:
More Ghz, more cores, more RAM!
NONSENSE!
I am using a simple Samsung NC10 as my working horse and put a Runcore Pro IV SSD in there. If you can prove that your little AMD whatever laptop, can run 40 apps simultanously, while doing a playback of an mpeg 2 besides having a skype videoconference in the background, various office worksheets, a browser with some 30 tabs+ etc etc etc, i will say, ok… this is a fast computer.
But you know what… It can’t cause you belong to this group of people that are believing in sheer cpu power. You just have no clue about overall system performance.
Oh by the way… let me add, that my system is running for around 6 hours while doing all this what i mentioned above.
I have a little, mobile supercomputer in my pocket that does everything but hd video editing and hardcore 3D gaming but come on, who want’s to do this on a 10″ screen anyways?
In all seriousness, what are you trying to do with a netbook? Playing Crysis? Producing a new Record Album? Playing 1080p videos?
Certainly, to the uninformed masses, trying to run their pirated versions of Photoshop CS4 will be utterly frustrating. Those of us who know that this things are for lighter computing and web browsing, can settle for less intensive tools that get the work done.
Did you really expect that a low power computer would be able to do all those marvelous things that your 17 inch laptop or $2,500 bucks desktop do?
BTW, that’s what you get for using Windows XP… I haven’t heard complaints from serious Linux users. (read it: It’s the OS, you dummy)
Badmouthing netbooks is the new thing and sadly Mr. Biggs rides the new shiny wagon…
I have all 3 devices – an iPhone, a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 and a Sony Vaio Z (as my main laptop). Guess which one is used most frequently? You guessed it, the netbook.
I used to think the netbook was a cheap companion device to a full-fledged PC; until I got one, that is. It may not be as powerful as my other laptops, but it does 90% of the things I do on a computer – surfing the net, playing music, et al.
There’s no way an iPhone performs the same tasks as a netbook, and with the same satisfaction, at that. As an example, I use my iPhone to surf the net *only* when I’m on the move – and it’s painful to scroll, pinch and perform all the myriad finger movements required just to make the text on the page readable. Do I have problems with that on my netbook? Most definitely not.
As for my laptop(s), I use them only when I require utilization of a stronger CPU to accomplish the task at hand. I’ve found that the laptop is becoming quite the white elephant. I’ve yet to bring my Vaio out of the house, and my older Compaq is way too heavy – funny, I never used to think of it as being a burden to carry about. I guess you could call that the “netbook effect”. ;)
The iPhone is a fantastic device, no doubt. I require a full-fledged laptop to accomplish tasks that a netbook can’t. However, the netbook fits into a niche in my lifestyle, and for the moment, that lifestyle requires mobile computing that is light, efficient, connected and long lasting (battery life). The netbook does all that and more.