5 questions posed by the arrival of netbooks
Remember all the netbook noise back in May? Computex seems months old and in the meantime we have had many distractions in the form of new camcorders, cameras, TVs, iPhones, audio equipment… But the netbooks are coming, and even if there is some delays like in the case of the MSI Wind, the market will have several models to choose from by the end of the summer. And then it will be time to pose some questions concerning the state of the PC and mobile markets, where they are going, or very importantly where they should already be by now! The following are questions that arose immediately when I learned netbook specs and prices during Computex. And I feel that they are far too important to ignore:
- Why are traditional laptops so expensive? This has bugged me for some time. The better machines tend to be disproportionately expensive. Surely having small components fit inside a light and portable package has its costs, but now netbooks prove that it is not that expensive! And not only that, the smaller screen you want, the more prices become unreasonable! Going from 15.4 to 13.3 inch screens can easily double the price, unless you are willing to settle for no graphics card, low memory, limited storage capacity…
- What distinguishes netbooks from laptops apart from size? See #1 above, in other words the price! OK, netbooks do not have large storage or so high processing performance, but in fact they are no pretenders and do what we normally expect from their larger brothers. In other words word processing, spreadsheets, web surfing and the occasional photo viewing.
- Why are smartphones so damn expensive? Smartphones are not full blown computers. Small screen sizes, extremely limited storage and low computing performance -by PC terms- make them glorified show off items bought by many that can afford them but cannot necessarily use them. Netbooks priced in the €400-€600 range are not telephones but excellent computers with a real keyboard, proper storage and good connectivity. Have RIM, Nokia and HTC been ripping people off all this time?
- Do we need smartphones? We all have our favourite mobile categories. I am sure that many people love their smartphones, personally I would prefer a mobile telephone plus netbook combination.
- Do we need UMPC or even MID devices? These two product categories have yet to convince us on their practicality and viability. If smartphones feel the squeeze from successful netbooks how can UMPCs and MIDs find a free space to flourish?
If laptops are sitting higher in the PC chain than netbooks, netbooks, UMPCs and MIDs are all trying to conquer the same space. 2008 will be the year of the first sales results. In my opinion the particular segment is extremely crowded and somebody has to go… In any case, there is different scenarios and we all have to think carefully of our hardware portfolio. Product categories are sitting so close that there is danger of buying stuff we do not need…
[...] month ago I wrote an post titled 5 questions posed by the arrival of netbooks, in which two of the five questions [...]
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:46 pm[...] awaiting how well they would do in the market I wrote two pieces. The first one was called “5 questions posed by the arrival of netbooks” and set the stage for comparisons with mobile devices both larger and smaller than netbooks, [...]
November 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pm