Nonsense!
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Jun 09, 2011 3:01 PM EDT |
It seems every year or two someone declares the desktop dead. Funny, big box retailers and computer stores near me all have lots of desktops. Ditto notebooks and netbooks. The netbook has been around at least since Toshiba introduced the Libretto in 1995. It's not going anywhere. Everyone from Wal Mart to CompUSA carries them and has quiet a selection. Yes, tablets have taken some of the market that used to belong to netbooks. Variety is a good thing but no one technology is going to replace all others. It just won't happen. Canonical signing the deal with ASUS is a good thing for the Linux community and for Linux adoption. Dismissing it as Matt Asay does... well... it's stupid at best. |
| tmx Jun 09, 2011 3:17 PM EDT |
Otherwise why does HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Dell, MSI and all these companies are coming out with netbook using the new AMD Fusion and Intel CedarTrail APU? My assessments are: optical drives are becoming less relevant, smaller laptops are more desired, desktop less relevant for consumer. The four computer devices that consumers now look for are: laptop, netbook, tablet, phone. 12-14" laptops are popular now, this is the highend. 10-12" netbook will be the low end. Then the tablet. Linux can do well in 3 of the categories, laptop will still donimate by Windows and Apple. The interesting thing is due to devices being smaller, battery life begins to be a big deal and lately we are getting real good battery life out of products. Also the performance some netbooks are competing with laptop power. The only thing that netbook differ from laptop is the optical drive. And the only reason optical drive still exist is because of Sony and MAFIAA. |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 09, 2011 4:54 PM EDT |
Why do I have the feeling there is more than meets the eye here? Perhaps we should read between the lines a bit more? Or just maybe, the exit was not as amical as depicted in the parting statements of ever lasting love between the parties as that person strolled from its portal to pursue challenges in the great beyond. Could the cloaked venom be pay back for a corporate push out the door characterized by 'Here's some cash contingent on keeping your mouth shut, now get your ass out of here.' Or is he just trying to be provocative to get hits? I wonder. The latter might be true, but that does not preclude some of the former having merit. As always, YBT |
| montezuma Jun 09, 2011 5:11 PM EDT |
On these matters I defer to my 19 year old daughter who stated last week that "Tablets are ridiculous. Why not get a smartphone and a laptop?" A tablet is heavier than a smartphone (plus no phone) and not as powerful as a laptop. |
| caitlyn Jun 09, 2011 5:18 PM EDT |
@montezuma: Sounds like your daughter is a smart young woman. I have a smartphone, a netbook and a desktop. All three serve very different purposes. The only one that might could replace another is the netbook which is powerful enough that I could get by without the desktop. Still, the desktop is better at a lot of things. Would I like a tablet? As a cool toy to try out, maybe. As something practical? I'm not sure what I'd do with it. |
| BernardSwiss Jun 09, 2011 6:23 PM EDT |
Quoting:But this hardly matters. Netbooks were a promising new market until Apple clobbered them with the iPad. As the author should know, netbooks weren't clobbered by Apple, but by Microsoft and Intel. Microsoft and Intel saw netbooks as a threat to their profits and leveraged (I would say abused) their positions in ways questionable (or even illegal) to starve the netbooks of resources and opportunities, actually making rules about what kind of hardware OEMs could assemble out of what components. Then there was the way MS (sometimes with active cooperation from some large retailers) rigged the market against Linux netbooks -- the ones that actually ran well on this restrained hardware -- to push them off of store shelves before the consumers could get acquainted with them (and in some cases even after customers had shown a preference for them). It got so bad that CEOs of major OEMs were publicly apologizing for demonstrating good, attractive and capable Linux netbooks at major trade fairs. When Apple came along with the iPad -- they had their own supply chain, their own outlets, their own distinct market niche, and a knack for effective marketing -- they were not vulnerable to these tactics. And they chose not to go head to head against existing competitors for an existing, commodity category (not Apples style), but to brand an undeveloped niche as their own, and make it "cool". This was a definite, well-deserved success, and iPads undoubtedly grabbed market share from the netbook market, but the stagnation of the netbook market was mostly due to it's deliberate suppression by Microsoft and Intel. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 09, 2011 6:57 PM EDT |
Nothing will make the netbook relevant like a $199 price point. |
| tuxchick Jun 09, 2011 7:05 PM EDT |
Great comments in this thread. IMNSHO the PC market is fragmenting in a logical fashion. Tablets are for "consumers" of entertainment. They're a passive experience-- point or wiggle a finger and something happens. Like fingerpaints. Somebody in another LXer thread made an astute observation, and that is that that smartphones and tablets meet the needs of users who used to be forced to buy PCs and laptops for Web surfing, watching movies, taking bad photos and movies, and other uses that don't fit that well on a PC. I love a good small laptop with long battery life; my ideal size is a 12" screen. This new generation of better batteries, lower-power CPUs, and nice bright sharp screens make these my portables of choice. I need something with a good keyboard because for me it's a general-purpose productivity tool, not a Facebook/Twitter/Flickr interface. |
| klhrevolution Jun 09, 2011 7:53 PM EDT |
The netbook is not dead but it makes for good conversation on why they seem to not be selling in the market, thus, we have people opinionating themselves as we have here. My take on this is as follows: The netbooks themselves varied from screen size & hardware and the operating system of choice really did not fit well with the specs, had XPe been pre-installed more people would have had a better experience, but had Canonical/Ubuntu been more prepared and we see they have yet to stop tinkering, although, it appears they have finally found a nest in Unity, things could have worked out better and Ubuntu may have been a big hit. Asus chose Xandros the same reason everybody (majority) ships with Microsoft, and everybody should have been aware of the in-bed relationship of Xandros/Microsoft... This time around the game is changing as Canonical/Ubuntu has shown itself to not be crippling itself like so many other past OS companies in the Gnu/Linux scene in other words they are reliable.. With arm netbooks about to hit the shelves Asus may be attempting to prepare an audience that is about to come to know the name Ubuntu and they might want to be the one "who started it all" not a direct quote but we all know how spin works so spare me.. As for nokia nobody should touch it, not even with a long stick--they are in what some refer to as purgatory, that is until microsoft loosens the leash and then we'll see where they are going. As for ChromeOS the previews of the hardware they'll be first shipping on is in the mid-range and they are not really targeting the netbook market but rather attacking apple directly! These asus netbooks with Ubuntu are simply low cost everyday people machines. The way things are with the economy Ubuntu can make magic happen with low cost devices--and let's not forget that the ARM cometh and if all of the little product demos I've seen are correct Ubuntu is going to be around for a long while. That being said amd and intel better wake up to the reality of sporadic bursting quantitative easing markets and realize that markets are changing (worldwide). |
| BernardSwiss Jun 09, 2011 8:04 PM EDT |
There's a great comment attached to the original Reg article -- it's posted by Anonymous, so just search the comments section for "Cinderella". Edit: or click here http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/1084300 |
| dinotrac Jun 10, 2011 4:28 AM EDT |
@caitlyn - Clever woman. I also have a Desktop, and netbook, but my smart phone is a Blackberry (w/o data plan!!) and thus utterly lacking in cool appeal. I love my netbook because it's so freakin' easy to care around. Battery life isn't what I'd like, but it beats the crap out of larger notebooks. Toss it in the backpack, hop on the bike (we are leaning green these days: losing weight and improving health in the process) and go. At home (office), however, the desktop rules. Nice big keyboard, nice bigger monitor. Standard components for the occasional re-gutting. Gotta love it. |
| jdixon Jun 10, 2011 8:59 AM EDT |
> I'm not sure what I'd do with it. The most common thing I've seen the tablets used for is as a mobile entertainment device. Music, video, books, and magazines. If you think about it, the Kindle and the Nook are really only extremely specialized tablets. > Nothing will make the netbook relevant like a $199 price point. When I got my Dell Min 9, that was the list price. I paid an extra $25 to get an upgraded camera, but the base model was $199. I also just saw an Acer Aspire One at Walmart for $198 Wednesday night. I suspect that model is on closeout, but... > At home (office), however, the desktop rules. Yep. The netbook is for travel. The desktop is for home use. |
| caitlyn Jun 10, 2011 12:40 PM EDT |
Quoting:If you think about it, the Kindle and the Nook are really only extremely specialized tablets.Actually, a friend of mine rooted her color Nook so that it could function as a full-fledged no limits Android tablet. For the technically savvy it isn't quite so specialized as you think. Quoting:I also have a Desktop, and netbook, but my smart phone is a Blackberry (w/o data plan!!) and thus utterly lacking in cool appeal.I also have a Blackberry Curve with an all you can eat voice/text/data plan with no contract/commitment. I like it even if it isn't cool. The Telenav GPS software works well and can be voice activated. I found lots of apps for the things I wanted when out and about or traveling. I don't doubt that my next phone will likely be an Android phone if the new Blackberry QNX OS isn't all that. We'll see in a couple of years :) |
| patrokov Jun 10, 2011 1:46 PM EDT |
The best thing about tablets is the portrait viewing mode and battery life. The worst thing about tablets is everything else. When will we get a laptop or netbook that can rotate its screen in relation to the keyboard? |
| mrider Jun 10, 2011 2:28 PM EDT |
Quoting:When will we get a laptop or netbook that can rotate its screen in relation to the keyboard? Seconded! The worst thing about LCD panels is that they are all dominated by wide screens. For 90% of my workload, that's exactly bass ackwards. If I wanted a television/movie viewing device, I would have stinking well bought one. |
| JaseP Jun 10, 2011 2:45 PM EDT |
Quoting: When will we get a laptop or netbook that can rotate its screen in relation to the keyboard? Unless you mean having the physical keyboard open and the screen turned 90 degrees, you DO have that,... The Dell Inspiron Duo can operate in portrait or landscape mode. And, if you use a docked CellWriter (in keyboard only mode) or Florence, you can have the onscreen keyboard rotate just fine. If you want a physical keyboard, you can just use a bluetooth or USB keyboard and prop the netbook up with a stand (or leave it 1/3 open & prop it up on its side). |
| henke54 Jun 10, 2011 3:22 PM EDT |
Quoting:When will we get a laptop or netbook that can rotate its screen in relation to the keyboard? there are several ... just google in images on your words : rotate screen in relation to the keyboard ;-) here are a few : http://www.blazepoint.co.uk/products.html?sub=rugged-laptops... http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo... |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 10, 2011 4:17 PM EDT |
Quoting:Yep. The netbook is for travel. The desktop is for home use. I'd love to use a desktop at home. But the portability of a laptop fits better. |
| patrokov Jun 10, 2011 6:49 PM EDT |
Mrider has the idea. Sorry JaseP and henke, I should have been more specific. I want the monitor to swivel to portrait in relation to the keyboard, not for the monitor to swivel around and become a tablet covering the keyboard. JaseP, it's true, you can you can use a bluetooth keyboard with the android tablets and iPad, but they're too slow, and the keyboard's are either crap or too bulky. Not to mention, the whole package becomes too unwieldy. |
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