I ran into an interesting article on the BBC this morning

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8421491.stm

Apparently some are speculating that the classic dirt cheap NetBook may be an endangered species. Competition from book readers and such devices as well as smart phones is eating into their market. Plus the people that are in the market are looking for a NetBook are wanting to do more with them and this is pushing the prices up. As they pointed out in the article a 200 Pound* NetBook now is pushing 350 Pound* and this is close to the price of a low end laptop.

Maybe those of us who wondered why Apple didn’t jump into the NetBook field have our answer. They know the market better than we did and saw this coming.

*My keyboard has a Dollar sign but not a sign for the British Pound. There is a way to do it but I just don’t want to take the time to find it right now.

That actually wouldn’t surprise me if they are on the way out.
I bough a netbook a few years ago and found that it is impractical to do almost anything on it. My mobile email and browsing needs quickly went to my iPod touch (and later iPhone), and I use my full size laptop at school because I can’t stand taking notes on a netbook keyboard.

Netbooks are cheap, but they are also cheaply built, they have underpowered processors, tiny amounts of RAM, and small hard drives.In my opinion the tradeoff is not worth it for the time you waste waiting for them to complete simple tasks.

Also, something like a 13” Macbook Pro isn’t really all that big to carry around with you. Mines a 15” and I have it with me all day with no problems.

geoduck - 28 December 2009 09:10 AM

I ran into an interesting article on the BBC this morning

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8421491.stm
*My keyboard has a Dollar sign but not a sign for the British Pound. There is a way to do it but I just don’t want to take the time to find it right now.

Option-3 £

i was never quite sure what the big deal was about them in the first place. The name NetBook is just marketing drivel, to give a name to the cheapest laptops that could be made. Like you said using cheaper components and less of them made them cheap, but that’s hardly innovative or an entry into appliance computing.