Netbooks…. love them or hate them they seem to be everywhere these days. On a recent trip down to the local computer store I saw no less than three different brands of Netbooks; specifically Acer, Asus and MSI. Now don’t get me wrong, I am arguably the biggest fan of Netbooks in the whole wide world but I think someone lost the plot somewhere.
First of all lets look at Asus. This is the company that originated the Netbook and ironically began the downhill spiral into ridiculousness for the category. Simply put, they’ve released tens of variations of Netbooks, each with a slightly different characteristic (for example a 120 gig hard drive versus a 160 gig one) and given them ever so slightly different names (IE the 1000H versus the 1000HD respectively). This is in a word: “dumb”. I don’t get the need to release hundreds of minor variations of the same product. Netbooks are growing into monstrosities.
This isn’t the real issue though with Netbooks. The main problem is that people are starting to support them. I’m not talking about people buying them, my issue is that the world of computers is moving towards the Netbook. Firstly Intel came out with the Atom processor that was tiny and used less power but now Microsoft seems to be focussing a huge amount of effort on Netbooks with their Windows 7 release.
I understand it makes business sense that Windows 7 can run on a Netbook (there are literally millions of Netbooks out there) but why are we supporting a Netbook (that is low powered and unusable for people like myself with big fingers) rather than lowering the costs of normal technology? Intel has priced the Atom so cheap but their new releases, the Core i7 costs an absolute fortune. I think it makes more sense to promote cheaper, more functional computers for students and developing countries rather than Netbooks taking that role. The simple fact of the matter is that a Netbook is a luxury purchase for someone who wants a second laptop for traveling or fun purposes.
With Microsoft actively courting the Netbook market the situation can only get worse. Fairly soon we will all devolve into small handed, myopic super nerds running Netbooks with a 5-inch screen running “Windows Vista 2, revenge of the abortion”.
Not a nice future huh?
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I couldn’t agree more. The model number thing with Asus is a mess making it impossible to compare when shopping. I went as far as creating and posting a table detailing all of the different models and features at http://www.netbook.buying-tips.info/