About a year ago I got into this whole netbook craze. I wanted a no-frills laptop which I could carry round and do basic tasks, mainly so i didnt have to lumber my 17″ behemoth Acer 9300 Aspire (which is an excellent laptop btw does everything bar run the very latest games and not a single fault!!) around when im only going away for a few days to a week.
Anyway I ummmed and aaahed, looked around at them all checked my budget and in the end on impulse purchases the Asus Eee 900 Linux 16Gb. Now before I get facepalmed for choosing an ‘outdated’ model when things like the more powerful and sexier looking Acer Aspire one were out let me explain myself. All I wanted was somthing simple that did the job, I couldnt care less about windows or a 1.6ghz proccessor when all I am doing is talking on skype or typing a document. The Eee was going for less than 200 pounds and at that price I really couldnt refuse. I could go on about the portability and easy useability of my 900 forever (I will do full reviews of all my and my friends gadgets on this blog at a later date) but lets get to the point of the article. Whats happening to Netbooks?
Trouble is technology moves on very quickly and as such netbooks have been caught in the trap. Consumers want bigger, more powerful models forcing the niche netbook to become larger, heavier, complex and a damn sight more expensive. This flies into the face of the ideals behind the netbook tears off its head and pees down the windpipe. Lets break down the main points and see what has happened as things have evolved
Portability: Netbooks were designed to be carried easily, be lightwieght and small. Now orginally they were 7″ this meant you could slot one into a combat pocket with little trouble sadly though that is one tiny screen not suitable for everyone so they produced the 8.9″ netbooks this looks like a perfect middle ground (you could still fit one in a large handbag!!). A person with good eyes will have no problem with a 9″ screen plus the larger chassis could carry a larger keyboard (the Acer aspires have a 95% full one in fact) so making typing easier and most people were happy.
However a minority werent so the designers started putting in larger screens, which meant larger chassis which meant the thing that could be slipped into a large pocket or small satchel now took up a nice size space in a rucksack. The size of the screens seems to be getting larger by the day, 10.2″ is not a that big a leap (in general opinion) but its like looking at britney when she goes off the rails, you can see where its going wrong and if its not stopped then its only going to get worse. Now we have screens that are over 11″ and that firmly puts a netbook into laptop territory in terms of carrying round, this is made worse by the fact that many of the major companies are going to cease production of the 9″ models.
Cost: this is a doozy, just last year you could pick up a netbook for 150-220 pounds (we are talking top brand decent ones, not the gajillion cheaper Faik Wan brands) the specs of these machines was generally the same, a 900mhz-1.6ghz processor, 512-1gb of RAM, 8-16Gb SSD, webcam, Linux-XP. Sadly despite the specs remaining virtually unchanged prices are now rocketing up, a basic netbook from a major brand will now cost anything from 250-700 pounds (yes im counting the Vaio P despite what Sony may say!) this can be put down to people wanting the netbook to do everything thier desktop/laptop does. Netbooks were not really meant to replace an existing computer and anyone wanting such a device should really consider getting a small laptop instead for the same money.
Power: now it all depends what you want it for but the standard netbook specs will sevice you very well for running everything you could want bar high spec games and complex software. Still though companies are putting better and faster components into netbooks which sounds like a great idea until you realise the reality. Better technology costs more… do you need a 1.6 dual core on an ion platform when you are going to just type emails? do you need a HDMI port? in most cases the answer is no. Sadly a cheap and cheerful option is no longer possible, and would you really want to shell out 300 pounds on a wordproccessor when for a hundred extra a full laptop beckons? or maybe a smartphone can sate your desires for less? of course with new tech the netbooks become bigger and possibly heavier and inevitably more expensive.
In conlcusion the netbook is in danger of dying out, it is losing its identity and swiftly becoming the size and cost of a small laptop. Since such things exist in the first place what is the point of the netbooks existence then?
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