I don't understand the point of a "Netbook"

[cbdo2007]

I have a blackberry cell phone to surf the web and check email while I'm away. If I need to do some more intense surfing, I get out my laptop and work on it.

I don't understand what the point of these Netbooks are except that they are a gadget, targeted to those people who just like getting new gadgets. I don't really see a future in them as cell phones become smarter and laptops become cheaper.

To add to my confusion, is this article where Google is releasing their Chrome browser and OS next year on certain Netbooks.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/20/google.os/index.html ("Google OS: the end of the hard drive?")

Why would they do this on something most users don't even need/want? This just looks like another Google product/idea that seems smarter and faster and stuff but just isn't simplified enough for the average user nor justified enough in it's need for existence. Where am I wrong here?

[MrCoffee]

1. I have a laptop that sits downstairs and is only ever used for surfing

When it finally dies, I won't hesitate to replace it with a lighter, cheaper netbook.

[CBGLuthier]

2. netbooks will continue to get cheaper

Probably be a $99 netbook within a year. I would love to have one in the living room so I can hit imdb without leaving the room.

There may never be a $99 laptop PC.

[rcrush]

3. They dont seem to have a good track record.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/11/20/1527257/Netbooks-Have-Higher-Failure-Rate-Than-Laptops

Barence writes "Netbooks are more likely to fail within the first year than their more expensive laptop brethren, according to new research. SquareTrade, an independent US warranty provider, analyzed the failure rates of more than 30,000 laptops covered by its own warranties. It found that 5.8% of netbooks malfunctioned within the first year, compared to 4.7% for regular laptops and 4.2% for premium laptops costing more than $1,000. The research also raises question marks over the legendary reliability of Macs. Three PC manufacturers — Asus, Toshiba, and Sony — boasted better reliability rates than Apple. Macs have a 17.4% malfunction rate over three years, compared to market-leader Asus, which has a 15.6% failure rate. HP was the worst of the nine PC vendors listed, with a malfunction rate of 25.6% over three years."


http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/asus-toshiba-notebooks-top-squaretrades-reliability-figures/?news=123

[qnr]

4. They have their advantages. When size and durability are a concern, for example.

I regularly take my netbook when I'm photographing things off-road, on my scooter. My laptop doesn't fit, and even if it did, the HDD would not take the abuse. The SSD in the netbook will. Another point is that they're great for experimentation, I have tested at least 80 different distributions and alternative operating systems on my netbook, without having to worry about losing data on my real machines. Blackberry? Not me, I make about 100 telephone calls (in and out combined) per year.

Now, granted, I use my desktop or laptop machines for real work, and I use my Nokia N800 for real portability, but for me, at least, my netbook has been extremely useful.

---
BTW, for those that are wondering, HDD=Hard Disk Drive and SSD=Solid State Drive

[Chan790]

5. It's a value tweener now, part of an increasingly-hybridizing tech-future...

a lower-cost option to both the higher-priced smartphones (1) which are more expensive than any netbook with the added benefit of a smaller screen and a smaller keyboard and the more fully-featured and higher-performance laptops.

In fact, I suspect that the next step here will be phone capacity within netbooks via Bluetooth and utilization of both wifi and cellular internet along with improved speech-recognition software providing another input mechanism...ultimately hybridization is always the name of the game in this sector: just as smartphones have displaced the PDA, likely a hybridized communication tool (netbook/phone) will displace both...smartphone convenience combined with netbook capacity and performance.


1 - The ones that have similar-but-slightly-reduced performance. There is no smart phone with better performance. No smartphone with anywhere near the hardware-capacity for data-storage or memory. Further, as long as you don't push the boundaries too much (I wouldn't try to run modern games or design software on it), the netbook will run almost anything which runs on current computing platforms...that's simply not true of a smartphone.

[ipfilter]

6. I'm a good candidate for a netbook.

I have my desktop PC but would like to sit around and surf the web too. I don't need a full sized laptop to do that. However, the web browsers on newer smartphones are getting good enough to do that too.

[HopeHoops]

7. You have a 3.1" screen. My netbook has a 10.2" screen.

I got it for under $300 (about what your blackberry cost) and it runs Linux - HP's flavor. It is all solid-state (no hard drive) and has over 7 hours of battery life on a charge. It is light enough to hold in one hand like a "book reader" and, unlike a M$ machine, is ready to go within 3 seconds of opening the lid.

I'm typing this on an HP laptop with a 17" monitor and a huge hard drive that has rather pathetic battery life.

Each thing has its own place in the greater scheme of things.

[grace0418]

8. My husband is getting one because surfing on a cell phone is only fun for so long.

When we're traveling, we want to be able to actually get to sites without the hassle of mobile versions or the text being really small or having to scroll all over. That's fine for a few things, but not more extensive surfing. I think the netbooks look pretty great.

[JCMach1]

9. Bought both my daughters one, they are great if you have wireless

in your home.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Assuming that you can do word processing and spreadsheets on them

they'd be great for business travelers who want to travel really light.

[Codeine]

11. Because reading the screen of my Blackberry gets really old

really fast. It's fantastic for information formatted to its screen, but for webpages it largely sucks.

For the 16,000 texts and Tweets that go in and out of it each month and for my email accounts my Blackberry is wonderful, so it has a place, just as a netbook would.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. Can you see the point of the sub-notebook?

A netbook is a cheap sub-notebook, I love mine since I fly coach about 60 times a year and can use my HP Mini quite comfortably on any plane in the sky.

Not sure I buy into the whole "end of the hard drive" business though, especially in light of the recent fiasco where Microsoft lost T-Mobile subscriber data.

[fishwax]

13. well, they're more portable than regular laptops and you can get them for relatively cheap

And they provide a much better browsing experience than blackberries for less money in terms of monthly fees.

My wife has a netbook, and can do everything she needs on it. The only slight disadvantage is that it has no CD/DVD player, which doesn't really matter in terms of productivity since she keeps everything on a jump drive anyway. It was much cheaper than a laptop.

[jobycom]

14. I think computing is on the verge of another shift.

I saw a headline recently about hard drives becoming obsolete. I don't know if they will ever disappear, but I think the Internet is going to take the place of programs and even storage in not too long. You can get a netbook or laptop with a broadband plan and find all software and functions and apps online, rather than needing a hard drive for programs. You'll find games, word processors, music, and anything else on the Web. Sites will even store your photos and music.

It won't replace stand alone computers altogether. People need private documents, not everyone will have a mobile connection, and all of that. But I think there will be a strong market for a portable Internet machine with very little permanent software. For school, travel, and even functions other machines do now--apps, music, phones...

[CatholicEdHead]

20. Yes and no

SSD drives have a finite of total read/write cycles.

I use my Acer netbook more than my laptop but it cannot take the title of main machine. The Atom still does not compete with the 2yr old T5250 Core 2 chip. Also the 1280x600 screen is just not tall enough. Since most of the things I do relate to Office/Open Office, I have no problem writing papers, doing Powerpoints, etc... I just have a couple crucial programs that refuse to resize without crashing.

I see the next generation of ultra thin laptops to cover the middle ground with more powerful machines, more space, same price points. Look up the new Lenovo X100e, due out after New Years as where things will be going next and that looks to be my ideal travel machine mix (11in screen, AMD Athlon chip, 4GB RAM, 360GB HD, $500) given today's technology.

[JanMichael]

15. Love ours! In grad school

sucker goes into the backpack...super light; works for all my doc needs. It's awesome!

[RedCappedBandit]

16. Light, sturdy, small, much longer battery life..

Actually, I really don't understand the purpose of a regular laptop. They're really not too great on the move, with how sensitive they are and how pathetic the battery life is.
Think I'd rather have a desktop and a netbook than a desktop and a laptop.

[soleiri]

17. I got one for my son

He's in 10 grade, and I didn't want him lugging a lap top to school. A netbook is perfect for him, because all he uses it for is school.


That is until he put a freaking password on it and forgot it.
And his hint? He wrote to not touch his computer, in German.

It now sits on the desk at home, useless.

:grr:

[blogslut]

18. That can be remedied

Just put an Operating System on a thumb drive and install over the existing system. There are plenty of free, Linux-based distros that can be made bootable from a USB drive:

http://distrowatch.com

[soleiri]

22. Thank you.

I can now stop glaring at my son when he asks to use my computer. :)

[TicketyBoo]

19. I can see a niche.

My son is a college student, and he uses his to take notes in class.

Also, I like to use my phone strictly as a phone. I don't want my phone's battery to be run down by using it for non-essential stuff. I need it to make and receive calls. No smart phone for me.

[dembotoz]

21. i see it as more functional than a smart phone

my eyes are too bad and my fingers to fat to consider a smart phone.

and why the fuck do you want "an app" when you can use a program and the entire fricking internet.