Netbook Market 40% Down - Microsoft
Are netbooks slowly fading away? Microsoft mentioned during its quarterly earnings call that the overall PC market contracted by about 8% in the first quarter of year, which was at least in part driven by a massive 40% decline in netbook sales.
We are not really the pessimistic type of writers here, but 40% is a pretty substantial drop. Analysts picked up that number quickly and pointed to Intel and AMD, which did not paint a similar scenario, even if the overall average selling prices (ASP) increased and a drop of netbook processor sales was apparent. Microsoft indirectly accused Intel of cheating with its charts as the company apparently removed netbook CPU sales from its ASP charts entirely and took those products out of the equation.
We have been wondering for a while whether the tablet market is complementary, whether it has the potential to kill the netbook or whether it is a phenomenon that is limited to Apple as the PC industry has yet to produce a sucessful tablet. However, if the tablet kills the netbook in the end, it would somewhat dramatic for Intel, as the netbook was really the only successful product category the company created in recent history.
Remember the UMPC? Dead. The MID? Yup, dead as well. The netbook? It's still breathing, but it needs new ideas.
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I could never get used to one. Too underpowered to be my only computer, too painful to use with such a small keyboard/monitor/trackpad, and a pain to have to sync my info to my work desktop and personal laptop (at least at 10" they are).
Having said that I still don't get the tablet market either, it's just a big kids toy. There's something to be said for minimising the number of devices you have to a good phone and a powerful yet portable laptop. Introducing a third device is just pointless.
The next thing that actually looks useful on the horizon is the Atrix
I could never get used to one. Too underpowered to be my only computer, too painful to use with such a small keyboard/monitor/trackpad, and a pain to have to sync my info to my work desktop and personal laptop (at least at 10" they are).Having said that I still don't get the tablet market either, it's just a big kids toy. There's something to be said for minimising the number of devices you have to a good phone and a powerful yet portable laptop. Introducing a third device is just pointless.The next thing that actually looks useful on the horizon is the Atrix
Actually having a super phone is pointless - the screen is too small for anything. You better get a basic phone with 2 weeks of standby than any of these... crapphones.
@Zingam: Still using a Nokia 6210 Navigator: Phone, GPS, Sports Tracker, E-book reader, mp3 player, Camera (one that is actually usable as opposed to apple crap), games and a usable (in an emergency) web browser, email via Exchange all in a package you can drop off a single story building and keep running with.
No need for an i-anything yet, but if the Atrix with it's keyboard and sscreen dock can replace my laptop then it's a possibility (from memory it was 12" which I actually find useful)
Now I'm reminicing about my Siemens SL45...
I'd say the sales aren't as high because everyone who wants one/needs one most likely has one (me included) Although i'm considering getting something a bit more powerful than my NC10 for on the move, Although saying that still deciding on my next model as i'd like something running an nVidia GPU and a Dual Core CPU with good battery life (8 Hours Plus), Any suggestions anyone?
Hang out for the Asus Transformer, apparently with the keyboard attachment battery life goes well into the double digits.
well is possible for a ultra protable to last as long on battery and have some *punch* to it...I m looking at you asus.. yes I know you can have a "power notebook" as asus and HP have proved paried with Ion long with a few others but they are like £400 over. in ultra portable grounds, which are bigger, have better screens and have stronger CPUs more RAM and HDD space and some have a hybird system.
only thing that netbooks do have is that they can fit pretty much anyware and mostly fully compatible with linux( as are most laptops)