the netbook was a fad anyway. it got left behind by iphone and android phones
Truth is, lots of people on a tight budget bought netbooks hoping they would meet all their computing needs. Most found that to not be the case. By virtue of being a shrunken variant of a laptop, netbooks promise something they can't deliver.
Now laptops have dropped so far in price that it hardly makes sense to spend $300 on a netbook when a full-functioning laptop is only about $100 more.
What has happened is that those who thought a netbook could replace a proper laptop now know better, so that segment of previous netbook customers is looking to cheap laptops whereas people just looking for a convenient, compact device for portable use are looking to the better options than netbooks like the iPad, the iPhone, the Touch, Android phones, etc.
Hence the netbook is going to be rendered utterly pointless within about a year.
few months ago i bought a $299 toshiba laptop with a 15" screen as a gift for someone. i was shocked that the build quality was very good and no crap ware. even the best buy software installer doesn't make any trouble.
I have a netbook. I bought it to tinker with and for the most part it's fun enough. As far as usability goes the iPad is vastly superior. The cramped keyboard coupled with the teeny touchpad makes inputting data, as well as manipulating what's already there, a chore.
I think for the crowd that netbooks are aimed for, the iPad is a much better solution (my opinion). This is particularly true if you buy the keyboard accessory for easier input of large quantities of text.
It's because the iPad works in tandem with a typical computer that it can be so compact and affordable. Adding functionality is all well and good but it comes at a price. More complexity, more demands on hardware, more connectors, leads to greater weight, more power consumption, etc. all of which are undesirable in a handheld device. In time clever solutions will expand the funtionality of tablets but right now those solutions are not apparent. Keep in mind that the PC became the mess that it did when software and hardware companies tried to keep adding features consumers said they wanted.
Exactly. It's like a Shuttle is to the Enterprise
Although in the future I expect the iPad will have descendants that become totally independent - all done wirelessly.
I should have known this was going to happen. I just picked up 8GB of DDR3 for $130. Any time I decide to finally buy a computer component, it drops sharply in price right after I buy it. I should try to make a career out of this. Anyone want to pay me $5 and I'll tell you what I'm planning to buy next so you'll know to wait until right after I buy mine?
He's not talking guesses about "someday". He's talking facts about now.
he said they won't be signficant any time soon. The iPad is at about 6-7% of worldwide market share this month and will be at about 10% next month. About the timeframe the article is referring to.
The iPad uses about 512 meg of dynamic ram (or is it 256 meg) - a netbook uses about 4 gigs. Replacing 10% of shipping computers with new computers that use a fraction of the ram could have a significant impact on ram supplies as the article states.
I would like to think the recent collusion awards against the major manufacturers of RAM have made a difference, making them less likely to continue such price-fixing activities, and driving down prices, but I believe that may be naive of me to ever think that, and that they will just be a little more discrete about their collusive agreements.
Movie Trivia: Where's good ole Zorin Enterprises when you need them to corner the market on chips and get those prices back up?
I have yet to meet someone who replaced their computer with an iPad.
We already use one iPad for a job that previously would have required a computer and we are about to do it for a second one. These aren't technically replacing a computer since we didn't have one for these jobs yet. But they did replace buying a new computer.
More like it's killing the netbook market. Within the next few years netbooks will go the way of CRTs, 8-tracks, and VCRs as other manufacturers put out their tablets using the iPad as a template.
doer the first time ever i dis agree w/ you
net books are here to stay
net books serve valid functions
as with dvd players
companies like coby and acer with little by little improve their products
the net book market will kill off msft low end biz
that all
i can now buy a 25 dollar dvd player that plays real nice
Somehow, I don't think that HDMI outputs and BD drives and 1080p screens make Dell notebooks "a mess".
I'm thinking in terms of what happened to Windows until Microsoft finally took a step in the right direction with Windows 7 and with the inclusion of so much junk just to satisfy the needs of a small minority.
Basically when someone came up with a feature they wanted, Microsoft put it in. They kept doing that with little regard for design elegance. Likewise, when the question of offering people a good portable solution came along, other computer manufacturers kept the laptop form factor pretty much intact just shrinking it. Apple, instead, has given us the iPad. It's a deceptively simple device that meets the needs of most. Right now it compliments a typical full-function computer which means it doesn't do it all. But not doing it all also means that what it does do, it does quite well.
If you have functions you want to perform that the iPad isn't designed for, the solution is simple. Use something else. I have a car and I know what it can do, hence I plan accordingly. If I have to transport an item that will not fit, I make other plans. But on a day-to-day basis, I appreciate the better gas mileage that I get because my car is not a truck. The gain in economy is worth the occasional inconvenience of not being able to transport certain larger items. If, on the other hand, I needed to transport such large items often, I wouldn't have purchased the car that I did.
This idea that a device has to be capable of doing absolutely everything that anyone could possibly imagine is not what Apple does. It's not as if Apple has to build products that make every imaginable consumer happy. But for those who get what they want out of Apple's products, no other electronics company, right now, is doing it any better. The iPad is great at doing what it does, it's clear what that is gong in, and consumers are giving a big thumbs up to the device.
More connection options, more this, more that. You have to know that the iPad would turn into a cumbersome mess if Apple tried to shoehorn it all in. The device isn't perfect and tweaking will go on for the forseeable future. But for the most part, the iPad works as intended and that's plenty for millions of satisfied consumers.
Somehow, I get the feeling that facts are totally unimportant in some circles, except to the extent that they get in the way of a good theory. Then they are Bad.
Kind of like the reason Stephen Colbert dislikes books...
I'm thinking in terms of what happened to Windows until Microsoft finally took a step in the right direction with Windows 7 and with the inclusion of so much junk just to satisfy the needs of a small minority.
Basically when someone came up with a feature they wanted, Microsoft put it in. They kept doing that with little regard for design elegance. Likewise, when the question of offering people a good portable solution came along, other computer manufacturers kept the laptop form factor pretty much intact just shrinking it. Apple, instead, has given us the iPad. It's a deceptively simple device that meets the needs of most. Right now it compliments a typical full-function computer which means it doesn't do it all. But not doing it all also means that what it does do, it does quite well.
If you have functions you want to perform that the iPad isn't designed for, the solution is simple. Use something else. I have a car and I know what it can do, hence I plan accordingly. If I have to transport an item that will not fit, I make other plans. But on a day-to-day basis, I appreciate the better gas mileage that I get because my car is not a truck. The gain in economy is worth the occasional inconvenience of not being able to transport certain larger items. If, on the other hand, I needed to transport such large items often, I wouldn't have purchased the car that I did.
This idea that a device has to be capable of doing absolutely everything that anyone could possibly imagine is not what Apple does. It's not as if Apple has to build products that make every imaginable consumer happy. But for those who get what they want out of Apple's products, no other electronics company, right now, is doing it any better. The iPad is great at doing what it does, it's clear what that is gong in, and consumers are giving a big thumbs up to the device.
More connection options, more this, more that. You have to know that the iPad would turn into a cumbersome mess if Apple tried to shoehorn it all in. The device isn't perfect and tweaking will go on for the forseeable future. But for the most part, the iPad works as intended and that's plenty for millions of satisfied consumers.
Excellent, well thought out analysis. Apple should use this verbatim to ward off critics who are always asking why iPads don't do such-and-such. Along these lines, did you catch the Bizarro cartoon this weekend, on the new features of the iPhone 5?
I'm thinking in terms of what happened to Windows until Microsoft finally took a step in the right direction with Windows 7 and with the inclusion of so much junk just to satisfy the needs of a small minority.
Basically when someone came up with a feature they wanted, Microsoft put it in.
How does Windows 7 differ? They have a huge ad campaign which claims they did exactly that with Windows 7.
companies like coby and acer with little by little improve their products
the net book market will kill off msft low end biz
that all
i can now buy a 25 dollar dvd player that plays real nice
The difference is that a lot of people have yet to transition to Blu-Ray. They're still buying DVD discs and will continue to for a few years yet. It took years for VCRs to be phased out and the transition from VCRs to DVD was rapid, compared to the move over to Blu-Ray.
Netbooks will not instantly cease to exist but their market share will dwindle to the point where manufacturers will lose interest in developing them. They're not exactly a distinct product so much as really small, cheap laptops. Keep in mind that while pricing, initially, for tablets will be higher than netbooks, in time it will drop to where netbooks currently are positioned. Tablet functionality will improve, not to mention performance, as pricing drops.
While Apple has opened the door, within a year we'll be flooded with tablets covering a wide range of pricing and functionality. Many of the tablets will fail to sell well but a few manufacturers will carve out a portion of this fledgling market, and each portion is another piece of the netbook segment pried away.
It's not just about how good a product the iPad is. It's also about how poor a product the netbook is proving to be and I suspect there's not likely to be a lot of repeat business.
I think it's a red herring to think the iPad is in any way to blame here. Relatively bog standard laptops have been shipping with 2-4Gb for some time now. It's not like it was back in the 90's when a PC shipping one year would have 64Mb, then the next year the "same" PC would ship with 128Mb.
However, whilst the standard amount of included RAM hasn't changed much over the past few years device manufacturers have been through geometary shrinks as they always do, so whilst there have not been a whole lot of new DRAM fabs thrown up (quite the opposite, there have been closures and consolidation), the fabs that are there are able to make more devices for the same production cost.
As a result of that, we're seeing one of the typical cyclical DRAM gluts start to appear. Happens every 2-3 years. The iPad wasn't to blame for the last one (or the one before that, or the one before that), so it's not to blame for this one either.
It's not just about how good a product the iPad is. It's also about how poor a product the netbook is proving to be and I suspect there's not likely to be a lot of repeat business.
The entire network team here at work each got a netbook. On Saturday, the guy who inspected a house I'm trying to buy wrote his report on a netbook and printed it out on a small portable printer for me. On my last work trip out to Iowa, my boss chose to bring his netbook with him instead of the laptop given to him by work, and he and a woman in Iowa got into a big chat about how awesome their netbooks were (she was using one at the meeting as well.)
It seems as though I see netbooks more and more these days. They obviously serve some basic functionality for many people.
How did you land on your conclusion about them going away?
Comments
the netbook was a fad anyway. it got left behind by iphone and android phones
Truth is, lots of people on a tight budget bought netbooks hoping they would meet all their computing needs. Most found that to not be the case. By virtue of being a shrunken variant of a laptop, netbooks promise something they can't deliver.
Now laptops have dropped so far in price that it hardly makes sense to spend $300 on a netbook when a full-functioning laptop is only about $100 more.
What has happened is that those who thought a netbook could replace a proper laptop now know better, so that segment of previous netbook customers is looking to cheap laptops whereas people just looking for a convenient, compact device for portable use are looking to the better options than netbooks like the iPad, the iPhone, the Touch, Android phones, etc.
Hence the netbook is going to be rendered utterly pointless within about a year.
I think for the crowd that netbooks are aimed for, the iPad is a much better solution (my opinion). This is particularly true if you buy the keyboard accessory for easier input of large quantities of text.
It's because the iPad works in tandem with a typical computer that it can be so compact and affordable. Adding functionality is all well and good but it comes at a price. More complexity, more demands on hardware, more connectors, leads to greater weight, more power consumption, etc. all of which are undesirable in a handheld device. In time clever solutions will expand the funtionality of tablets but right now those solutions are not apparent. Keep in mind that the PC became the mess that it did when software and hardware companies tried to keep adding features consumers said they wanted.
Exactly. It's like a Shuttle is to the Enterprise
Although in the future I expect the iPad will have descendants that become totally independent - all done wirelessly.
He's not talking guesses about "someday". He's talking facts about now.
he said they won't be signficant any time soon. The iPad is at about 6-7% of worldwide market share this month and will be at about 10% next month. About the timeframe the article is referring to.
The iPad uses about 512 meg of dynamic ram (or is it 256 meg) - a netbook uses about 4 gigs. Replacing 10% of shipping computers with new computers that use a fraction of the ram could have a significant impact on ram supplies as the article states.
Movie Trivia: Where's good ole Zorin Enterprises when you need them to corner the market on chips and get those prices back up?
I have yet to meet someone who replaced their computer with an iPad.
We already use one iPad for a job that previously would have required a computer and we are about to do it for a second one. These aren't technically replacing a computer since we didn't have one for these jobs yet. But they did replace buying a new computer.
More like it's killing the netbook market. Within the next few years netbooks will go the way of CRTs, 8-tracks, and VCRs as other manufacturers put out their tablets using the iPad as a template.
doer the first time ever i dis agree w/ you
net books are here to stay
net books serve valid functions
as with dvd players
companies like coby and acer with little by little improve their products
the net book market will kill off msft low end biz
that all
i can now buy a 25 dollar dvd player that plays real nice
As if.
Somehow, I don't think that HDMI outputs and BD drives and 1080p screens make Dell notebooks "a mess".
I'm thinking in terms of what happened to Windows until Microsoft finally took a step in the right direction with Windows 7 and with the inclusion of so much junk just to satisfy the needs of a small minority.
Basically when someone came up with a feature they wanted, Microsoft put it in. They kept doing that with little regard for design elegance. Likewise, when the question of offering people a good portable solution came along, other computer manufacturers kept the laptop form factor pretty much intact just shrinking it. Apple, instead, has given us the iPad. It's a deceptively simple device that meets the needs of most. Right now it compliments a typical full-function computer which means it doesn't do it all. But not doing it all also means that what it does do, it does quite well.
If you have functions you want to perform that the iPad isn't designed for, the solution is simple. Use something else. I have a car and I know what it can do, hence I plan accordingly. If I have to transport an item that will not fit, I make other plans. But on a day-to-day basis, I appreciate the better gas mileage that I get because my car is not a truck. The gain in economy is worth the occasional inconvenience of not being able to transport certain larger items. If, on the other hand, I needed to transport such large items often, I wouldn't have purchased the car that I did.
This idea that a device has to be capable of doing absolutely everything that anyone could possibly imagine is not what Apple does. It's not as if Apple has to build products that make every imaginable consumer happy. But for those who get what they want out of Apple's products, no other electronics company, right now, is doing it any better. The iPad is great at doing what it does, it's clear what that is gong in, and consumers are giving a big thumbs up to the device.
More connection options, more this, more that. You have to know that the iPad would turn into a cumbersome mess if Apple tried to shoehorn it all in. The device isn't perfect and tweaking will go on for the forseeable future. But for the most part, the iPad works as intended and that's plenty for millions of satisfied consumers.
- a netbook uses about 4 gigs.
As if.
Somehow, I get the feeling that facts are totally unimportant in some circles, except to the extent that they get in the way of a good theory. Then they are Bad.
Kind of like the reason Stephen Colbert dislikes books...
I'm thinking in terms of what happened to Windows until Microsoft finally took a step in the right direction with Windows 7 and with the inclusion of so much junk just to satisfy the needs of a small minority.
Basically when someone came up with a feature they wanted, Microsoft put it in. They kept doing that with little regard for design elegance. Likewise, when the question of offering people a good portable solution came along, other computer manufacturers kept the laptop form factor pretty much intact just shrinking it. Apple, instead, has given us the iPad. It's a deceptively simple device that meets the needs of most. Right now it compliments a typical full-function computer which means it doesn't do it all. But not doing it all also means that what it does do, it does quite well.
If you have functions you want to perform that the iPad isn't designed for, the solution is simple. Use something else. I have a car and I know what it can do, hence I plan accordingly. If I have to transport an item that will not fit, I make other plans. But on a day-to-day basis, I appreciate the better gas mileage that I get because my car is not a truck. The gain in economy is worth the occasional inconvenience of not being able to transport certain larger items. If, on the other hand, I needed to transport such large items often, I wouldn't have purchased the car that I did.
This idea that a device has to be capable of doing absolutely everything that anyone could possibly imagine is not what Apple does. It's not as if Apple has to build products that make every imaginable consumer happy. But for those who get what they want out of Apple's products, no other electronics company, right now, is doing it any better. The iPad is great at doing what it does, it's clear what that is gong in, and consumers are giving a big thumbs up to the device.
More connection options, more this, more that. You have to know that the iPad would turn into a cumbersome mess if Apple tried to shoehorn it all in. The device isn't perfect and tweaking will go on for the forseeable future. But for the most part, the iPad works as intended and that's plenty for millions of satisfied consumers.
Excellent, well thought out analysis. Apple should use this verbatim to ward off critics who are always asking why iPads don't do such-and-such. Along these lines, did you catch the Bizarro cartoon this weekend, on the new features of the iPhone 5?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wqo9IVCWV5...E+09-05-10.jpg
I'm thinking in terms of what happened to Windows until Microsoft finally took a step in the right direction with Windows 7 and with the inclusion of so much junk just to satisfy the needs of a small minority.
Basically when someone came up with a feature they wanted, Microsoft put it in.
How does Windows 7 differ? They have a huge ad campaign which claims they did exactly that with Windows 7.
What features are missing from Windows 7?
doer the first time ever i dis agree w/ you
net books are here to stay
net books serve valid functions
as with dvd players
companies like coby and acer with little by little improve their products
the net book market will kill off msft low end biz
that all
i can now buy a 25 dollar dvd player that plays real nice
The difference is that a lot of people have yet to transition to Blu-Ray. They're still buying DVD discs and will continue to for a few years yet. It took years for VCRs to be phased out and the transition from VCRs to DVD was rapid, compared to the move over to Blu-Ray.
Netbooks will not instantly cease to exist but their market share will dwindle to the point where manufacturers will lose interest in developing them. They're not exactly a distinct product so much as really small, cheap laptops. Keep in mind that while pricing, initially, for tablets will be higher than netbooks, in time it will drop to where netbooks currently are positioned. Tablet functionality will improve, not to mention performance, as pricing drops.
While Apple has opened the door, within a year we'll be flooded with tablets covering a wide range of pricing and functionality. Many of the tablets will fail to sell well but a few manufacturers will carve out a portion of this fledgling market, and each portion is another piece of the netbook segment pried away.
It's not just about how good a product the iPad is. It's also about how poor a product the netbook is proving to be and I suspect there's not likely to be a lot of repeat business.
However, whilst the standard amount of included RAM hasn't changed much over the past few years device manufacturers have been through geometary shrinks as they always do, so whilst there have not been a whole lot of new DRAM fabs thrown up (quite the opposite, there have been closures and consolidation), the fabs that are there are able to make more devices for the same production cost.
As a result of that, we're seeing one of the typical cyclical DRAM gluts start to appear. Happens every 2-3 years. The iPad wasn't to blame for the last one (or the one before that, or the one before that), so it's not to blame for this one either.
Samsung and other ram makers are looking for an excuse to slow down production to keep prices high.
they weren't too happy when ddr2 prices dropped so low you could have gotten 4gigs for 15 to 20 bucks after rebate from reputable brands.
they don't want to see prices that low and will do whatever they can to keep the prices high.
I loaded up on ddr2 the last time.
if DDR3 drops that low. I'm loading up again. 24gigs here I come.
Seriously, is this even remotely considered journalism? What does journalistic integrity have anything to do with the articles around here?
IPAD IS SO GOOD RAM IS CHEEP NOW!
rooooooooooooofl
The headline is such a reach.
Samsung and other ram makers are looking for an excuse to slow down production to keep prices high.
they weren't too happy when ddr2 prices dropped so low you could have gotten 4gigs for 15 to 20 bucks after rebate from reputable brands.
they don't want to see prices that low and will do whatever they can to keep the prices high.
I loaded up on ddr2 the last time.
if DDR3 drops that low. I'm loading up again. 24gigs here I come.
"24 gigs here I come"
Are you saying you're running this now with ddr2? Good God LOL. That's awesome.
It's not just about how good a product the iPad is. It's also about how poor a product the netbook is proving to be and I suspect there's not likely to be a lot of repeat business.
The entire network team here at work each got a netbook. On Saturday, the guy who inspected a house I'm trying to buy wrote his report on a netbook and printed it out on a small portable printer for me. On my last work trip out to Iowa, my boss chose to bring his netbook with him instead of the laptop given to him by work, and he and a woman in Iowa got into a big chat about how awesome their netbooks were (she was using one at the meeting as well.)
It seems as though I see netbooks more and more these days. They obviously serve some basic functionality for many people.
How did you land on your conclusion about them going away?