Thin Intel Netbook to vie with MacBook Air?
During a keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, an Intel executive brandished a Netbook that looked Air-thin. Will inexpensive Linux Netbooks be a poor man's MacBook Air?
Ultrathin Intel Atom-based Netbook shown at IDF.
(Credit: Intel)Most of the photos to date of upcoming Netbooks are ho-hum designs, engineered to be inexpensive yet practical for users such as young schoolchildren. But some upcoming designs look intriguing--and extremely thin. (See close-up photo here--PC Watch.)
"This Netbook is running Linux...As you see, this doesn't mean an ugly design. It's a really nice-looking, stylish design," said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobility Group, when waving a very-thin-looking Netbook (photo) at the audience during his keynote at IDF.
Consider the typical specifications for a Netbook (best exemplified by the tiny Eee PC) and it's not a stretch to design an ultraportable, ultrathin Netbook:
Power-sipping Atom processor: This chip will draw as little as 0.65 watt, much less than the Air's Core 2 Duo chip which has a TDP (Thermal Design Power, or thermal envelope) of 20 watts. This means less heat dissipation.
Solid-state drive: Netbooks (Eee PC, Intel Classmate) will typically use SSDs, not hard-disk drives--another power- and space-saving feature. (There will be exceptions such as the 2go, which packs a hard drive.)
No optical drive:: Typically, Netbooks won't come with optical drives--meaning power and cost savings.
Smaller display: Netbooks will have small, less-power-hungry displays, ranging from seven to nine inches.
Though not as well-endowed as full-fledged notebooks like the MacBook Air, Netbooks won't set you back $3,000 either. It's likely that the price will be much closer to $300--but that's a big unknown at this point.
Intel sees two distinct market opportunities for the Netbook. In the developing world, Netbooks will attract first-time buyers. In more mature markets, they will become supplemental PCs.
Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
I like all the OSes and all their GUIs and accompanying apps to varying degrees and for varying uses. I happen to use Linux most often but still use Windows and Mac OS X. I suppose the notion that the Netbook will be less expensive than the macbook air triggered the poor man's comment but there are many flaws with that characterization once you look past price.
BUT I think a lot of peple would pay $300 for a light decent borwsing system to haul to the coffee shops to do webmail and googledocs plus other web activities.
Apple is just riding the prowess of a truly powerful chip maker.
Let's see Apple make a $300 laptop.
What is puzzling is: where is the decent sub-notebook in between the MBA and Netbook range? Why is a drop in half the low-end PC notebook price result in drops in the features and capabilities by more than half? That is something the consumers may really want.
As for style, which is a high priority for MacBook Air buyers, PC Magazine writes "The Mini-Note is designed to look like a $2,000 machine. The anodized aluminum that HP draped all over the exterior is absolutely gorgeous."
- by nspires1 April 23, 2008 6:04 AM PDT
- I am an educator with a small, 8 student classroom. I am looking for someone to donate 5 to 8 laptops (even 1 laptop from 5-8 sources would be great). Ideally they would be 'wireless' ready. Does anyone know a good place to start looking? Are these netbooks available to the public yet and if so who creates them and how do I contact them?
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(17 Comments)Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!!