The Netbook is dead. Long live the notebook!
Much coverage of this year's Consumer Electronics Show is full of references to new Netbooks introduced at the show. But in fact, there were hardly any Netbooks at all, and those that did appear went almost unmentioned.
The truth is, the Netbook is dead, and good riddance. The concept of the Netbook was based on a tragic misunderstanding: the belief that tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people worldwide wanted a portable computer that was small, power-efficient, and (here's the misunderstanding) not good for much beyond accessing the Internet.
Asus's Eee PC T91 convertible tablet
(Credit: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.)That's where the "Net" in "Netbook" came from: the Web, e-mail, chat, maybe some VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol communications).
That's what the earliest Netbooks delivered, too--machines like the Eee PC 701 from Asus (which I described here) that came with slow single-core processors, small amounts of RAM, small liquid crystal displays, and tiny, slow flash drives. They were good enough for light Web browsing and e-mail--and not much more. They wouldn't run Windows XP with acceptable performance, never mind Windows Vista.
Well, nobody wanted those machines. Companies that tried to sell them saw unprecedented return rates. Asus, for its part, couldn't upgrade the Eee PC fast enough; current Eee PCs have faster processors, more memory, larger screens, and larger flash drives or real rotating hard disks.
At CES, Asus expanded its line of Eee PC systems to include the S101, S101H, 701, 701SD, 701SDX, 900, 900A, 900HA, 900HD, 900SD, 901, 901XP, 904HA, 904HD, 1000, 1000H, 1000HA, 1000HD, 1000HE, 1000HG, 1002HA, 1003HG, and 1004DN laptops; the T91 and T101H tablets; and multiple Eee Top desktops. (Seriously! Most of these model numbers are on Asus's Eee PC site; the others are from CES. And I may have missed some.)
Certainly, all of these Eee PC systems were clearly distinct from Asus' mainstream offerings: Celeron or (mostly) Atom processors, 10-inch or smaller displays (on the laptops), and smaller amounts of RAM and mass storage.
But the fact is, they're all capable of much more than simple Web browsing. Asus specifically promotes the use of Windows XP Home with all of these machines, and it looks like they'd all run Vista as well, though perhaps without all the visual bells and whistles.
You wouldn't buy these machines to run Photoshop, edit high-definition videos, or play 3D games, but for most simpler purposes, they'd be fine.
In fact, as a cross-platform kind of guy myself, I'm thinking about getting one of those T91 tablets, when they go on the market later this year. I used to use a Motion tablet for meeting notes (with Microsoft Office OneNote, a great package) and PowerPoint presentations at Montalvo Systems, and I'd really like to do that again.
Small-screen laptops over the years. Foreground: a TRS-80 Model 100 (1983); rear, from left: an Apple PowerBook Duo 270c (1993), a Dauphin DTR-1 pen computer (1993), and an Asus Eee PC 701 (2007). From the author's collection.
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)So what's left of the Netbook concept? Small displays? C'mon, we've had small displays since the dawn of mobile computing. There hasn't been a day since 1983 when you couldn't get a laptop with a small display.
So these new machines aren't merely Netbooks that are "evolving" or "overachieving". They're notebooks. And Moore's Law will ensure that these systems will eventually suffice for any fixed workload. (3D games get more demanding each year, so small notebooks will always be inadequate for bleeding-edge gaming.)
Actually, there were some true Netbooks at CES. What distinguished them from these other machines, which were merely called Netbooks?
Well, today, if you want to make a subnote with a few hundred MHz of processor power and really basic 2D/3D graphics, an x86 processor and chipset is the expensive way to get it. It's better to start with an ARM processor. Some of those are single chips with almost everything you need except RAM, and they'll save you up to $50 off the x86 alternatives.
Such Netbooks have been announced by several companies, including Pegatron, and LimePC. There's nothing wrong with these machines. I'm sure they'll do everything they're advertised to do.
But this still brings us back to that tragic misunderstanding: few people will buy an ARM-based Netbook priced at $199 to $299 when there are good x86-based notebooks starting at less than $400. Certainly not when the x86 machines can run Windows or a mainstream Linux distribution, provide far more CPU and GPU performance, and come in the same small sizes.
So that's that. The Netbook is dead. Long live the notebook.
Peter N. Glaskowsky is a computer architect in Silicon Valley and a technology analyst for the Envisioneering Group. He has designed chip- and board-level products in the defense and computer industries, managed design teams, and served as editor in chief of the industry newsletter "Microprocessor Report." He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
If we read buyers' reviews on Amazon or some other online store we find that all the netbook facts the author brings are just wrong. Every body I know who owns the EEEPC 701 is still in love with it. The only complaint I hear - very frequently - is the low resolution of the 7 inch screen, just 800 pixels wide, which makes browsing content rich 1024 pixels wide webpages a painful task, too much scrolling all over.
The thing is, netbooks are NOT miraculous low cost notebook replacements. Period. They are a different kind of machine, for people with a different purpose of those who need or want a notebook.
I have no need for a notebook. Never had, probably never will. An EEEPC with a 1024 pixel-wide screen does fine for me. In fact, 'cause it's so small and simple, we can use it anywhere from bed to public transportation, it does much better than would a Vaio or MacbookAir.
And - YEAH - don't forget netbooks were conceived for poor children in the third-world (OLPC and intel Classmate), not to take over the market of HTCs, iPhones and Vaios. But they have proven to execute fairly well the tasks we would go/pay to an internet shop/café for.
I wonder what is gonna happen to those huge EasyEverything stores in Europe...
I doubt they are dead, but Netbook were really the first step toward a real smartphone. If Netbooks are really dead then it will probably hamper any advancements in portable computing devices. And NO the iPhone does count either.
While relatively small compared to traditional hard drives there is nothing slow about flash drives. Their read and write speeds are superior to hard drives. My eeepc is surprisingly fast due in no small part to it's solid state drive.
From what I've seen, quite a few people have been picking up netbooks, since notebooks that I've seen that are truly the same size and weight as netbooks cost significantly more. To be sure, technical advances will lead to more powerful computers being crammed into these small form factors, but why wouldn't there always be a market for less powerful, cheaper alternatives to whatever the current notebook mainstream offers?
The fact is that Netbooks _are_ dead because almost all the companies that used to make them have, simply, STOPPED. Today they're selling machines that are fully capable (albeit low-end) notebook computers.
I gave the example of Asus, the company that introduced the first high-volume Netbook, which today uses the Eee PC name to sell far more capable machines. Asus hasn't introduced any new 7" models. All of the new machines have far better CPUs (an improvement greatly out of proportion to the usual Moore's Law progress). They're all able to run Windows XP and do a lot more than simple Web browsing and email.
Apart from a few companies that are trying to market ARM-based machines, the Netbook is dead, and good riddance. It was a bad idea to begin with.
Add to that only a modest improvement in the graphics chipset and I think both you and CNET are overstating how much of a leap in performance there was between the generations of netbooks.
Well, I did say in the article that these small notebooks still can't do some of the things that people expect to do with more expensive notebooks.
But today's small notebooks are far more capable than last year's Netbooks. Last year's machines were generally inadequate for Windows XP, Microsoft Office, and other mainstream applications, which is why they came with Linux and simpler apps, and focused on basic Internet functionality.
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Also, I think that netbooks work best with flash drives and LInux. Who really wants to maintain Windows updates, security software and load down such a small laptop with tons of data?
I totally agree. I think the author is way to young here and forgets that we put man in space on systems that could do much less.
" that came with slow single-core processors, small amounts of RAM, small liquid crystal displays, and tiny, slow flash drives. They were good enough for light Web browsing and e-mail--and not much more. They wouldn't run Windows XP with acceptable performance, never mind Windows Vista."
ER .... could it be that the OS is bloated and not efficient??? We do not require aeroglass to do word processing or excel.
"You wouldn't buy these machines to run Photoshop, edit high-definition videos, or play 3D games, but for most simpler purposes, they'd be fine."
More to the point...... Yes a netbook is for doing the minimum things that one needs while on the road. Do internet, watch news on the fly, do some light word or excel work (there are some excellent apps for these efforts) and the key is that you want a keyboard and usable screen.
While I use an iPhone and can do e-mail on the road, using the iPhone for texting beyond the minimum is a real pain. And even if they add cut and paste to the iPhone (I have no idea why they need it) it just does not make sense. A 10 inch screen and small keyboard make all the difference.
One last thing. The author keeps indicating how companies quit making things. Hey, if they make no profit, then its pretty stupid to make them. Laptops that sell for $400 are pretty much in that catagory. When the cost of parts = the price of the unit, you can sell as many as you like but you will go broke doing it.
Business 101. Find a market. Fill the need. Apple is currently doing that quite well, and making a pretty good profit at it. Do they fill all the needs? NO. But who says you have to??
Just a thought.
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Pay attention to the screen sizes, hard drives and OS'es. Do you still call them "netbooks"?
Unfortunately for many of those retailers, the Eee PC 700 series saw high sales rates AND high return rates.
"I think the return rate for the Eee PCs are low but I believe the Linux and Windows have similar return rates."
Think of Netbooks as a golf cart that can only go 30 miles per hour. There are very limited applications for such vehicles. Not zero, sure, but most users have no interest in such a thing.
Here's how I see it...
Take all the power (cpu, ram, hd, graphics) and package it into something that does have a screen but is much much smaller. At work, I'll use an external mouse and keyboard anyway so the onboard keyboard is for occasional use anyway. Give me a second graphics port that works for a third monitor and I'll have two monitors at work plugged into my netbrick along with the network, keyboard and mouse. When I go mobile, I can still have all my files and power but with a much smaller screen and keyboard. I can live with that.
What you're describing is something more like the Vaio P, which the previous commenter mentioned, or the HP Mini 2140, which adds an ExpressCard interface that can provide high-performance I/O expansion for graphics and other purposes. These are not Netbooks.
I also like the idea of being able to hook them up to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse so I have a desktop when I'm at home and a (very) portable when I'm out!
While even small laptops are pretty powerful, the appeal of the Netbook is different than the laptop; low cost, and long battery life!
And come to think of it, I don't know of any application I would use on a Netbook (Video editing? I don't on my 12" laptop! Graphic editing? Only in a pinch!) that it isn't capable of handling with its current specs.
How much of the other stuff is "WANT"?
And, in this time of business collapsing all around us, my guess is that "NEED" will outweigh "WANT" before long. Just because it hasn't been that way until now, doesn't mean it won't ever be...It'll jst take hitting that price point.
Instead of trying to write a column based on what you think is a clever title, then making a ess of it because the column has to support the title, why not try simply communicating effectively? Don't like to type UMPC? You need to Tilt at the nomenclature? Criminy.
That's exactly what I said in my post. Which post were you reading?
For whatever it's worth, I wrote the title after I wrote the post. You need to work on your psychic abilities as well as your reading-comprehension skills.
But for what it's worth, I suspect that the orthodoxy of what constitutes a Netbook isn't really that set in stone, though, regardless of how convenient that would be for the argument presented here. It is a marketing term, after all, isn't it? Also, when was it decided that a Netbook could only handle "light" internet use, rather than "normal use"? And for that matter, what is "light"--websites with lots of pictures won't load? You can't play flash games? No Youtube?
And finally, the limited power that enables a Netbook to do a passable job with internet use naturally also allows it to do a somewhat crappy job with other tasks--nothing about the processor, RAM, hard drive, or monitor, forbids it from some more general use. I just bought an Eee 1000, and while it does okay with email, document editing, web browsing, etc., it also does a crappy-but-usable job opening Word documents and playing simple games. Years ago, I bought one of those horrendous iPaq "internet terminals", and its hardware could support Windows 98 if you hacked at it a bit--it didn't become more powerful magically, it just showed that a computing device designed explicitly with a certain level of usage in mind doesn't become an altogether different device just because its capabilities are directed to some other purpose.
So what I'm saying is--if they're called Netbooks, and they clearly aren't mainstream notebooks, maybe we can just keep that term to distinguish them, even if they commit the blasphemy of running OpenOffice and TuxRacer?
I'm pretty sure Dell call it netbook, and many posters in this forum also call it netbook. If netbook was never coined in 2007, people would have say it is a low powered notebook. Remember the Celeron desktops and notebooks? Just because there is a netbook term does not twist the fact.
The original netbook was a small screened, low processor, low battery, good for nothing but internet usage machine. Later, people wanted more power, larger screen, good for most things machine. Slowly, netbooks become notebooks, abeit a low power one.
Is that so hard to understand?
I also agree that the netbook concept was a bad idea! I have an old Apple 12" G4 Powerbook (netbook in size but not function) and if I could only surf the net on it I would have traded it in years and years ago!
Money is the key.
Key to a netbook IMO, are the reasons I bought my netbook.
#1 - size. I DONT WANT a bigger screen because then it just becomes a laptop, delicate and a pain to carry about (I want something that doesn't need a shoulder strap).
#2 - SSD. I DONT WANT a HDD because I want to be able to throw the thing in my backpack to go travelling and not have to worry about it. I want to stick it on the dashboard of my 4WD and bash some serious dirt. I want to take it camping so I can write notes, code, or organise my photos by the campfire with a cuppa in the morning.
#3 - Performance. I DONT WANT a high performance processor because that invariably means heat, moving parts like fans, and high power usage. I actually want something that just ticks over well enough for the tasks. I disable anything I'm not using in my EEE701 and can run for 3-4 hours without a charge.
#4 - Price. Its gotta be cheap, not because I'm a 'skate, but because I want to do all of the above without having to worry about my precious investment getting broken.
Price is a factor, but not THE factor IMO. Okay, if you offered me a table full of all the laptops in the world and said I could have one for free, granted I'd pick something with grunt, a nice sized screen etc, but my point is, I'd still go around the corner and buy myself a little netbook as well, because it actually served a DIFFERENT purpose in my life.
- by BigGuns149 January 21, 2009 1:17 AM PST
- I think several issues with this article.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (82 Comments)The first is that the current generation of netbooks are "capable of much more than simple Web browsing." Sure I can run OpenOffice or some other basic application on an Atom processor, but I could do a lot of the same tasks on the original eeePC 700. The only difference is that the Atom N270 would do so faster. Even then if we ignore graphics heavy tasks the differences become rather minute because the differences in the graphics chipsets is greater than the difference in the CPUs.
The other flaw I see in this article is that I think that the author overstates how dramatic of a leap the Atom N270 was over the Celeron M. The graphics chipset is quite a bit better on the newer generation of small laptops (the GMA 945) is quite a bit better over the older GMA 915, but neither are great even compared to other integrated chipsets. When you look at non-video benchmarks the Atom based machines tend to only finish the task ~20% faster. Especially on such low end hardware where you wait for the computer a lot that isn't nothing, but if you were depressed by the older celeron based netbooks you probably will be depressed with the N270 based Atoms. I could easily say that the Atom is a "slow single-core processor" and nobody who was informed would say I was lying. There is a newer dual core mobile version of the Atom, but it isn't scheduled to show up until Q2. It will probably also bring more cache and a better chipset, but until then I think calling the mobile Atoms powerful enough to give you a "fully capable notebook" as the author wrote in the comments I think is a big boastful.
While this piece is written far better than some of the junk that passes for journalism at CNET I think that the author could have done better.