Yup, another article originally published in my tech blog, Global Nerdy. As with the previous two, this one is of interest not just to programmers, but anyone using portable and mobile computing devices, such as smartphones, netbooks and laptops.
If you’re pressed for time, the graphic below – which takes its inspiration from these articles by Kathy “Creating Passionate Users” Sierra — captures the spirit of this article rather nicely:
If you have a little more time to spare, I’m going to explain my belief that while netbooks have a nifty form factor, they’re not where the mobile computing action is.
A Tale of Two Pies
When I was Crazy Go Nuts University’s second most notorious perma-student (back in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s), I took a handful of business courses at the recommendation of my engineering and computer science professors. “You’re going to have to learn to speak the suits’ language,” they said. Crazy Go Nuts University has a renowned business school and I thought it would be a waste not to take at least a couple of business courses. I especially liked the Marketing couse, and one lecture stands out in my mind: a case study comparing the dessert offerings of two major fast food chains.
In the interest of not attracting the attention of their lawyers, I’m going to refer to the chains as:
- Monarch Burger, whose mascot is a mute monarch with a glazed-over face, wearing a crown and associated paraphernalia, and
- Jester Burger, whose mascot is a clown in facepaint and a brightly-coloured jumpsuit who loves to sing and dance.
Both Monarch Burger and Jester Burger offered a dessert that went by the name “apple pie”. Let’s examine them.
Monarch Burger’s Pie
Monarch Burger went to the trouble of making their apple pie look like a slice of homemade apple pie. While it seems appealing in its photo on the menu, it sets up a false expectation. It may look like a slice of homemade apple pie, but it certainly doesn’t taste like one. Naturally, it flopped. Fast-food restaurants are set up to be run not by trained chefs, but by a low-wage, low-skill, disinterested staff. As a result, their food preparation procedures are designed to run on little thinking and no passion. They’re not set up to create delicious homemade apple pies.
Jester Burger’s Pie
Jester Burger’s approach was quite different. Their dessert is called “apple pie”, but it’s one in the loosest sense. It’s apple pie filling inside a pastry shell shaped like the photon torpedo casings from Star Trek. In the 70s and 80s, the pastry shell had bubbles all over it because it wasn’t baked, but deep-fried. After all, their kitchens already had deep fryers aplenty – why not use them?
Unlike Monarch Burger’s offering, Jester Burger’s sold well because it gave their customers a dessert reminiscent of an apple pie without setting up any expectations for real apple pie.
Jester Burger’s pie had an added bonus: unlike Monarch Burger’s pie, which was best eaten with a fork, Jester Burger’s pie was meant to be held in your hand, just like their burgers and fries.
At this point, I am obliged to remind you that this isn’t an article about 1980s-era desserts at fast food burger chains. It’s about netbooks and smartphones, but keep those pies in mind…
Netbooks are from Monarch Burger…
Netbooks remind me of Monarch Burger’s apple pie. Just as Monarch Burger tried to take the standard apple pie form and attempt to fit it into a fast food menu, the netbook approach tries to take the standard laptop form and attempt to fit it into mobile computing. The end result, to my mind, is a device that occupies an uncomfortable, middle ground between laptops and smartphones that tries to please everyone and pleases no one. Consider the factors:
- Size: A bit too large to go into your pocket; a bit too small for regular day-to-day work.
- Power: Slightly more capable than a smartphone; slightly less capable than a laptop.
- Price: Slightly higher than a higher-end smartphone but lacking a phone’s capability and portability; slightly lower than a lower-end notebook but lacking a notebook’s speed and storage.
To summarize: Slightly bigger and pricier than a phone, but can’t phone. Slightly smaller and cheaper than a laptop, but not that much smaller or cheaper. To adapt a phrase I used in an article I wrote yesterday, netbooks are like laptops, but lamer.
Network Computers and Red Herrings
The uncomfortable middle ground occupied by the netbook reminds me of another much-hyped device that flopped – the network computer, which also went by the name "thin client". In the late 90s, a number of people suggested that desktop computers, whose prices started at the mid-$1000 range in those days, would be replaced by inexpensive diskless workstations. These machines would essentially be the Java-era version of what used to be called "smart terminals", combining local processing power with network-accessed storage of programs and data.
A lot of the ideas behind the network computer ended up in today’s machines, even if the network computer itself didn’t. Part of the problem was the state of networking when the NC was introduced; back then, broadband internet access was generally the exception rather than the rule. Another major factor was price – desktop and even laptop computers prices fell to points even lower than those envisioned for NCs. Finally, there was the environment in which the applications would run. Everyone who was betting on the NC envisioned people running Java apps pushed across the network, but it turned out that the things they had dismissed as toys — the browser and JavaScript, combining to form the juggernaut known as Ajax — ended up being where applications "lived".
When I look at netbooks, I get network computer deja vu. I see a transitory category of technology that will eventually be eclipsed. I think that laptops will eventually do to netbooks what desktop machines did to network computers: evolve to fill their niche. Just as there are small-footprint desktop computers that offer all the functionality and price point of a network computer along with the benefits of local storage, I suspect that what we consider to be a netbook today will be just another category of laptop computer tomorrow.
I’m going to go a little farther, beyond stating that netbooks are merely the present-day version of the network computer. I’m going to go beyond saying that while their form factor is a little more convenient than that of a laptop, the attention they’re getting – there’s a lot of hoo-hah about who’s winning in the netbook space, Windows or Linux – is out of proportion to their eventual negligible impact. I’m going to go out on a limb and declare them to be a dangerous red herring, a diversion from where the real mobile action is.
…and Smartphones are from Jester Burger
A quick aside: The photo above is not of a Jester Burger fried apple pie. In response to their customers’ so-called health concerns (really, if those concerns were real, they’d stop eating there), they started phasing out the fried pies in 1992 in favour of the baked kind. There are still some branches of Jester Burger that carry the fried pies, but a more reliable source is a fast food chain that I’ll refer to as “Southern Chicken Place”, or SCP for short. Those pies in the photo above? They’re from SCP.
Jester Burger made no attempt to faithfully replicate a homemade apple pie when they made their dessert. Instead, they engineered something that was “just pie enough” and also matched the environment in which it would be prepared (a fast food kitchen, which didn’t have ovens but had deep fryers) and the environment in which it would be eaten (at a fast food restaurant table or in a car, where there isn’t any cutlery and everything is eaten with your hands). The Jester Burger pie fills a need without pretending to be something it’s not, and I think smartphones do the same thing.
Smartphones are truly portable. They really fit into your pocket or hang nicely off your belt, unlike netbooks:
And smartphones are meant to be used while you’re holding them:
Just try that with a netbook. In order to really use one, you’ve got to set it down on a flat surface:
The best smartphones make no attempt to faithfully replicate the laptop computer experience in a smaller form. Instead, they’re “just computer enough” to be useful, yet better fit the on-the-go situations in which they will be used. They also incorporate mobile phones and MP3s – useful, popular and familiar devices — and the best smartphones borrow tricks from their user interfaces.
Smartphones, not netbooks, are where the real advances in mobile computing will be made.
Smartphone vs. Netbook: The People Have Chosen
One again, the thesis of this article, in graphic form:
In the late 80s and early 90s, the people chose the fast food apple pie they wanted: the convenient, if not exactly apple pie-ish Jester Burger pie over Monarch Burger’s more-like-the-real-thing version.
When people buy a smartphone, which they’ve been doing like mad, they’re buying their primary mobile phone. It’s the mobile phone and computing platform that they’re using day in and day out and the device that they’re pulling out of their pockets, often to the point of interrupting conversations and crashing the trolley they’re operating.
When people buy a netbook, they’re often not buying their primary machine. It’s a second computer, a backup device that people take when their real machine – which is often a laptop computer that isn’t much larger or more expensive – seems like too much to carry. It’s a luxury that people might ditch if the current economic situation continues or worsens and as the differences between laptops and netbooks vanish. Netbooks, as a blend of the worst of both mobile and laptop worlds, will be a transitional technology; at best, they’ll enjoy a brief heyday similar to that of the fax machine.
The people are going with smartphones, and as developers, you should be following them.
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I would have liked this article a lot more if it just said McDonalds and Burger King instead of making up names to be cute. No one’s going to get sued for talking about talking about apple pies. Photon torpedos FTW though.
By the way, that lengthy reply was brought to you by my smartphone. In a matter of minutes. Just like a Netbook.
News flash: phones are easier in a “need it right now” environment. Notebooks/netbooks are best for a “need to set it down and get real work done” environment. Big yawn.
At the end of the article deVilla addresses developers.
The truth is no one develops for a netbook. You can develop computer applications (be it on a desktop, laptop, or netbook), you can develop mobile applications, and you can develop web applications.
The thing is netbooks don’t run many computer apps well and so there is a chance your user will have a bad experience. While there seems to be a market for netbooks as cheap and light laptops, there is no market for netbook applications as there isn’t a separate experience other than size and being limited. In any scenario a user is using a netbook, it could hypothetically be replaced with a laptop that does the same thing better.
Web applications can actually be broken down into mobile web apps and computer web apps. If it being on the web makes it a good experience for all platforms than facebook would not have designed a separate interface for mobiles and youtube would not have made the iphone app.
Smart phones offer a separate experience from the computer and have unique attributes not shared by desktop, laptop, or even netbook. They are almost always with a user, on, location aware, have connection to the internet through data plans, and can be used with one hand while standing. Hence, deserving recognition as a platform
Netbooks should not be discussed as a development platform as they are still laptops ( just crappy ones.) There is really no comparison, but if you still want to develop for the netbook, I’m sure the market is screaming for more text editors : ]
Until very recently (as in this week) I spent 18 months regularly commuting between Leeds and London by train – towards the end I would say about 1/3 of the computers people were using were Netbooks. They work in space constrained environments.
Another point is that they may not fit in a pocket, but they do fit in a handbag.
Xofis – don’t underestimate until used. I slowly found myself using mine for reading email and RSS feeds, if not actually doing a lot of typing(i.e. I don’t disagree that phones – all phones – are poor text entry devices, but there are a lot of ways to use them.
Ry – you can’t get an equivalent Windows laptop to a MacBook at half the price – I’ve tried costing up equivalent Dell systems for some of my developers and the cheapest Dell with a 1066 FSB and DDR3 RAM, as well as the same CPU, was more like $200 cheaper than Apple’s list price (which can be undercut). I would say the price difference is more around the 15% mark. It does annoy me when technically minded people who should understand what ‘equivalent’ means fudge the figures.
However, that is not to deny the point that you can get a usable Windows laptop for half the price of a MacBook, particularly if (as people increasingly are) it’s just going to be a portable web browser.
45 million netbook users by the end of 2009 (including the 08 sales) are telling a different story.
No need to argue about it, the market says it all.
Funny how people are trying to fight the trend of affordable mobile computers with a great formfactor. Let me guess… you have an iPhone and a MacBook… talking about stereotypes
Netbooks are cheaper than smartphones. Period. Why do people insist on leaving out the 2 year contract and monthly fee when talking about phones? The real price of a new iPhone if you want to buy it with no contract is at least $600. That’s twice the price of a netbook.
My opinion is that the device which will replace netbooks is some sort of tablet device. The only thing making netbooks cumbersome is the need to open the lid and type on a borderline-unusable keyboard. This would change with a decent on-screen keyboard technology (such as that found in the iPhone, but scaled up for a 10″ tablet screen). I can hold my netbook in one hand and type on the keyboard, but it’s annoying since the lid does not open enough. With a tablet device, it would be quite comfortable to hold the device on one arm and type with the other hand.
The main reason netbooks are bad right now is the low resolution of the screens, bad keyboards and generally cheap and shoddy construction that comes with a low-cost piece of equipment. All it needs is for some manufacturer to up the bar on those things and the whole market will turn around.
The word “netbook” is meaningless. I was hoping that you would define what it means to you, since you bandy it about as though it had inherent meaning. From context, I guess it means “portable computer that is smaller than a typical laptop/notebook computer”. But all of these devices under examination connect to the internet, and none have to do with fishing, so “netbook” in and of itself makes little sense. Someone reading this article ten years in the past or ten years in the future will be fascinated and somewhat perplexed.
Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine (along with much of the other faddish technology jargon-du-jour).
That said, I agree with your general thesis, and particularly enjoyed your company name placeholders.
-b
Using Joeys own flawed argument I could claim that there is no market for a laptop computer – you’ve got a desktop with a full sized keyboard and big screen when you’re at home, or a smartphone for when you go out. Laptops are a ‘dangerous red herring’.
The thing about netbooks is that they are laptops but they are actually portable! You can put a netbook in your bag and take it on holiday, to the shops, to a cafe without noticing the weight.
If anything smartphones are the red herring – locked down, tiny screen, crap keyboard. Nobody would dream of replacing their main computer with a phone.
If anything I’d say netbooks are going to replace laptops for the simple reason there is nothing a netbook cant do that a laptop can – they are just smaller and they are the inevitable future of computing.
Wil netbooks be hip if Apple introduces one?
I think netbooks are in the “zone of good enough”. Not as capable as a full-fledged laptop when you’re sitting down, but still pretty usable. Not as portable as a smartphone when you’re on the go, but still very bearable. “Good enough” devices may not look like much, but they can be fierce competitors in the wild. I wouldn’t write them off just yet. Back in the 1970s, the minicomputers laughed their asses off when they heard of the first personal computer. “He’s just like us, only lamer ROTFL!!!11″
Of course netbooks “suck” – Apple doesn’t make one!
You say it yourself towards the end of your post: “I suspect that what we consider to be a netbook today will be just another category of laptop computer tomorrow.” That’s all a netbook is, a thin and light laptop. Everyone who extols their virtues uses them as they would use a laptop.
Your argument makes a lot more sense when applied to those 7″ UMPCs and MIDs. (Yes, I suppose the original Eee falls into this category, but I’m mainly thinking the various slate or slider type device actually marketed as UMPCs or MIDs.) They’re a little too big to fit in your pocket, too small too offer a good laptop experience, but the software isn’t there too offer a good experience of its own.
What I wonder about though are the smaller UMPC/MIDs, the ones with the 4.8″ screen or smaller. (e.g. Viliv S5, or XpPhone.) The XpPhone really is a cellphone and Viliv has announced an S5 with a 3G radio. They’re both large by cellphone standards, but they both fit inside a pant pocket. If the software is there to offer a compelling experience, we may see the growth of the “large cellphone” as well as the “small laptop.”
I don’t think they will meet in the middle though, for precisely the reason you articulate. In the middle, it’s too large to be truly mobile, but too small to do laptop like things convincingly. (Everyone with 10″ netbooks who disagree with me, your netbook is really a cheap laptop.)
I won an iPhone and a Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh and an iMac. I use all three , but in different capacities. I have to type a lot of texts on the go, for which the small size and weight of the Dell is just perfect (although the keyboard is a bit of a nightmare, though not more so than the iPhone). I use my iMac mainly for entertainment purposes these days: downloading movies, music, watching them, using it to update my iPhone. You’re wrong about the price and power difference, imo. This Mini 9 sometimes feels faster than my iMac, and I can have several programs open at once (Pages, Endnote, Safari, iTunes, Papers) with no noticeable slowdowm, and all that for just €300. There is just no Mac alternative available that will allow me to carry a low cost one kilo OSX unit with me. I can slip it into my bag and never notice it’s there until I need it. I was never able to do that with my white MacBook.
Frankly, I hope Apple comes out with, if not a netbook, at least a small (and dare we dream) affordable laptop.
As I don’t have a big “proper” laptop, my netbook fills the niche between the iphone and the big desktop-based tower i have at home. Light emailing, dumping photos from my camera, running presentations, writing/editing documents on the train/plane (where the small form factor allows for more comfortable fit on those horrid tray things). And yes, if I did have a laptop, I’d get less use out of the netbook…but as TC notes above, it’s the price point that makes it more of a disposable commodity device that has its uses.
YES!!!! Finally someone with sense, I’m sick of hearing all the Linux crowd arguing about whos winning the netbook space and shouting “year of the linux desktop……on netbooks” when really its not going to matter at all, netbooks will be one of those things we’re all laughing at in 5 years when smartphones have become as omnipresent as the iPod.
Oh and all the people wishing for an Apple netbook, it already exists its called the iPod Touch
I think you may be right in practice, even if you might be wrong (as several of these other fine folks have suggested) in principle.
As they have noted, there is a space between laptop and smartphone where netbooks can comfortably sit.
However, I think that’s going to change when we can roll/fold/pull out a fabric keyboard and display from the smartphone and have it suddenly be as big for reading and typing as the netbook.
~ TGC
Wow such a long winded report on netbooks and amusingly compared with deep fried pies.
I can confirm that as a student the netbooks are perfect.
No one wants to type lecture notes on a smartphone.
Full size laptops are heavy to take around and take too much space.
Netbooks are light, affordable and cover all the main bases when it comes to student computing.
Well you mentioned that smartphones are computing enough, well it might not be enough for other people. Viewing websites on an iPhone is quite tiring and involves a lot of scrolling around. Granted netbooks don’t have large full size screens but its still much more enjoyable than browsing the web on any smartphone.
In conclusion, contrary to your opinion I believe netbooks are here to stay. With increasing amounts of computer power on the web and increasing internet speeds, I believe unlike the UC, the netbooks will continue to grow.
Some quick points of information:
1. It’s interesting to be called a Mac fanboy, as I’m a developer evangelist with Microsoft Canada whose particular focus is on the web, mobile and gaming. I suppose some people assumed that because it was John “Daring Fireball” Gruber who linked to this article.
2. The reason I referred to the burger chains as “Jester Burger” instead of McDonald’s and “Monarch Burger” instead of Burger King is because I was originally going to post the article to Canadian Developer Connection, a Microsoft-owned blog and didn’t want a visit from the legal department.
3. My belief is that some vendors — one of whom is my employer, Microsoft — are paying too much attention to netbooks because they see them as a brand new category of computing device. I see them as simply the smallest, cheapest laptops available, as time goes on, the distinction between “laptop” and “netbook” will disappear. My real concern is that Microsoft isn’t putting in enough visible effort into Windows Mobile, which — and remember, opinions expressed on this blog are not necessarily those of Microsoft — looks pretty limp compared to the offerings aby Apple, Google and Palm.
4. The laptop pictured in the graph is some kind of Dell.
On the other hand, pretty much the same logic can be applied to laptops. I have never owned a ‘full-size’ laptop because they are pretty much overpriced, underpowered, back-breaking pieces of luggage that’s easily lost. Since I don’t travel that much and can usually wait to send an email there is no point in getting a laptop.
But with my netbook I just don’t think about it. I just drop it in my back pack and go. Sure, it’s underpowered, but perfectly able to do what I need on the move and for the rest of the time I have a desktop that’s at least twice as powerful as any laptop and probably one-third as expensive. And because a netbook is far from overpriced, losing or damaging it is no big financial hit. For me ‘full-size’ laptops are right in the ‘Zone of Suck’
My first netbook is now a test web server at home that I can leave on all the time and access remotely from my second one.
I agree
and for what I see, netbooks are geeks tools or cheap computers never satisfying their user for long.
the trend is clear in fact : smartphone for the go. thin and light laptops computers at home or works.
the future is NOT a 9″ unreadable screen with a tiny horrible keyboard.
I have always liked the old design engineering maxim that says, “Form follows Function.” That’s why a 2009 Honda Accord doesn’t look like a gas guzzling 1955 Cadillac with big tailfins.
I have an iPhone and a MacBook Pro 17″. My wife has an iMac with a 24″ display that’s upstairs in her office. Each of these devices is better for certain functions.
The iPhone is better for phone calls and mobility because of small size (fits in my shirt pocket) and 3G connectivity. I can use it anywhere. It works great for checking realtime traffic conditions while driving and for GPS mapping apps. It’s also best for streaming music to my car radio.
My MacBook Pro is better for web surfing, typing a long document, accessing my database at the office, and watching HD Movies in the full screen 1920 X 1200 view. However, it isn’t very good for checking something on the web while having lunch at a restaurant. The iPhone is better for that.
My wife’s iMac has a big external disk running 24 hours a day that handles TimeShare backups for both our Macs. It also has a couple printers attached that we can both print to with WiFi. Neither my iPhone or my MacBook Pro can host those services very conveniently.
Thinking ahead in terms of form follows function, I can see a place in our house for one more device. I’d call it a ‘coffee table’ computer that is neither ‘my wife’s’ computer or ‘my computer.’ It would be a battery operated wireless toss around device that you could just pick up whenever you wanted to look up something on the web, check email, chat, play games, or perhaps make a Skype call. It might also stream music to our stereo system. Something evolved from today’s netbooks could be one possibility. A tablet computer might be even better for these functions (think of an iPod Touch with a 10 inch screen).
One thing for sure is that I don’t want to pay AT&T for two separate data plans on different devices. But I think it might be nice is that coffee table computer could operate on 3G. The obvious solution here would be for my iPhone to have the capability to tether both my MacBook Pro and the coffee table computer. That way I could use the data plan that I’m already paying AT&T for with any of these three devices. That would make my ‘coffee table computer’ a great travel accessory.
Bottom line is that I see more convergence to come between the mobile phone and the mobile computer. The device manufacturers (like Apple) and the software providers will be able to open up huge market potentials if they can somehow manage to reign in the greedy self-serving cellular network service providers like AT&T and Verizon who seek to put a toll booth at every Internet node and on every device.
To all those saying or implying that netbooks have only a one time cost:
When you stop living with your parents, and/or graduate school, exactly, pray tell, where shall you get 24×7 free internet access? Or shall you live in a coffee shop?
I don’t think I’ve ever read anything so stupid. Of course, that wasn’t until I actually went to your blog.
Netbooks are perfect for people that need a portable device that they can actually do work on – not a smartphone. People that work on their feet all day, but also need to occasionally sit down and work, love the netbook.
Smartphones will NEVER replace netbooks/laptops. Laptops will NEVER replace smaller devices that do the exact same thing, with almost just as much power and speed.
Anyone that says you can do “real” work on a smartphone should be emabarrassed.
I think the netbook form factor is here to stay, though I can see some category blurring with budget laptops and ultraportables (Dell has a Mini 12 for example). Many commenters praised netbooks’ balance of portability and functionality, in comparison to the small and cramped experience on a smartphone, so unless smartphones develop some kind of game changing technology like Timothy Collett mentioned, lots of people will continue to find them unsuitable.
I guess it’s not fair to accuse the author of Mac fanboy-ism, but I still think if Apple came out with some sort of inexpensive laptop counterpart to the Mac Mini (which would surely not be called a netbook), a good fraction of the netbook hatred would suddenly disappear.
Nice argument and a good read, but I’m sure this has been said already in response – netbooks are selling so well, they threaten to make other computer offerings by the same companies less viable. So as nice as your analogies are, they kind of ignore the fact netbooks sell like the ol’ deep fried apple pies (so delicious).
Is this a good thing? Hell no. I hate netbooks for all the reasons you stated. But I think they might be around for a lot longer than you think.
The problem I see from this way of looking at netbooks is that smartphones make lousy input devices for decent sized bodies of text. Heck, I don’t even like commenting on blogs from my smartphone.
They can be great for any number of other things, but they are severely limited for content creation, generally. (Obviously, the New Yorker cover proves that is is possible, but it doesn’t prove that it is easy enough for regular usage.)
Until smartphones get better for serious text input, there will continue to be a big place for something with a larger keyboard. Carrying an folding attachable or bluetooth keyboard is one answer, but so long as you are carrying both, why not just carry a netbook? With bluetooh earpieces and voice driven interaction with phones and media devices — see the latest iPhone3GS, whose voice driven interaction is two way — the fact that the netbook in is a purse, backpack or shoulderbag does not prevent it from being used as a phone and media player, too.
I will go ahead and disagree with Ian, William Woody, Andy Patel, MattH and everyone else that thinks an Apple Tablet/netbook is a great idea.
What good is a 10″ screen if you can’t carry it in your pocket or use it with one hand while you drink coffee or stand in the subway.
There isn’t a need for some other type of device. You’re either sitting or standing and we have excellent devices both those human conditions.
Maybe we’ll get a tablet MacBook, but it will be more of a laptop and much less like an iPhone.
Excellent article, Joey. You nailed what I was thinking.
I look at the cheap netbooks, I look at my white MacBook, and while there is a difference in price (which I am perfectly willing to pay, it’s not that much compared with all the other stuff in my life) there really isn’t enough of a difference in size to make me want to consider a “netbook”. They really are just cheap, small laptops that I expect will leave many users unsatisfied over the long run. You still have to set them down, boot them up and use them in a stationary position – 3 strikes against them while I am standing in line for coffee.
My hunch is that “netbook” as a separate category will evolve over the next year into various small laptops as users decide that they just cannot live without ______ (DVD, big keyboard, bigger screen, etc.). I think Apple is right to wait it out and see.
I use an iPhone as well, and I won’t argue that they replace laptops – just different and good for different circumstances due to physical form factor and input limitations. This category of device is far less constrained by comparisons to bigger cousins like laptops.
I lurve my netbook.
It’s my portable TV/Radio/Email/surfing device, and I love it.
But when we want to edit video, or update a website, or even blog, we use the iMac in the office. Perhaps I missed the memo somewhere, but when did netbook users start using their netbooks as a primary machine? I bought it specfically for streaming video/internet radio for the kitchen when I’m cooking (instead of buying a TV), why would I want to do that on a smart phone? Man, dinners would suck!
I guess I’m a vast minority with my position. I had an iPhone and eventually got a unibody mac. for the price, it seemed basically like an expensive toy. I had a pc desktop that I used for gaming and photoshop, which are really the only things besides the basic computer functions I used. I moved and left the desktop behind, and just lived with the lack of those two activities.
with my macbook, I found myself skype video chatting, iming, using iTunes, web browsing, and as a media drive for photos. a netbook can do all of these for 800$ cheaper and be more portable. I’m also beginning to travel more and it seems the netbook would be a better choice for this as well. as I always have a bag of some sort, the fact it can’t fit in my pocket is no loss.
now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been an apple fanboy for over 15 years, and absolutely loved the MacBook, but I just didn’t /need/ what it had to offer – especially for almost 1000$ more
so I sold it and will be buying a netbook within the next few months. as far as the smartphone goes, I really love the iPhone. google maps and mobile browser basically ensured my survivability, or at least my general comfort after moving to los angeles. there’s a lot it can’t do, though. other than the fact I need /some/ way to browse the net, google maps is the only thing that’s making me keep it. I want something I don’t have to baby/worry about so much. also something less than 80 a month. I know I can get a mobileroadband adaptor for computer, but I still need to research before I mess with that.
to summarize, browsing on my phone leaves me wishing for a
bigger screen and keyboard. I’m more alone than I expected in the matter that I’ll be using a netbook for my primary computer – cheap, portable, and while maybe not “good,” it’s “good enough.”
Netbook bashers seem to be mostly Mac users. Shame really, I have a Mac Book Pro 15″, but spent nearly a year traveling all over Asia with just a MSI Wind netbook. There is no way I was lugging a 5.5 lb machine on my back (I travel with only one small backpack). The netbook let me do everything (!) I would normally do on my laptop — Lightroom and Photoshop for digital photos, update my blog, video conference, write research reports, run SPSS (which sucks on a Mac), etc. This in NOT an underwhelming experience, and I value the form factor. Try doing any of that on a phone.
Most people here seem to miss the point, Netbooks are a diversion from the development really exciting, imaginative mobile computing – sure small light and more portable laptops, or for some of you ‘netbooks’, are important, but they’re not what will drive the mobile world.
Just a small note. I love what is said about notebooks. Having recently bought a laptop, i agree they don’t deliver ENOUGH of anything to be signifcant unless you were literally looking for something to do very ‘LIGHT’ work light writing word docs, inputing excels, etc (i.
But in contrast I’m just not on board with how he uses smartphones. Because most of them also lack form factors that you need on the go and can’t get at times. If you need things are a glance or check it or jot notes smarts phones are the most awesomest gadgets ever. But once you need more you’re lost. If you need to stop and write and article, doing some light redesigns, input info into your excel (quickly), your smart phone is freaking useless or atleast not very useful.
I don’t know if there’s a middle ground or not but that’s my two cents.
Expanding on the post by John C. Welsh.
Most people have a cell phone already, to those people insisting you need to add the cost of the cell phone plan to the smartphone may have a point but as there will already be a cell phone bill anyway the only thing you should factor in is the additional cost of your data plan if any.
On an unrelated point I prefer to have a phone and iPod touch separate because if one device fails I have not lost everything. This is more important to me than carrying one lightweight item.
Ok, so netbooks are lame because they’re not the best for mobile computing… but what if that’s not why you want one?
You say that netbooks will “evolve” to be another kind of laptop, but they already are. Most people who buy netbooks – including me – aren’t looking for a mobile computing experience. They’re looking for a laptop that doesn’t cost an arm, doesn’t weigh a ton, and does what they need it to do – in my case, allow me to write easily when I’m away from home.
I own a smartphone. When I want to check my e-mail quick, I grab that. When I want to write, no smartphone is anything but extremely annoying for the task. The fact that my netbook has wifi only means that I don’t have to go between two devices if I’ve got wifi coverage – it’s a convenience, not a necessity.
You can say that the laptop is the computer in the zone of suck. Somewhat more powerful then a netbook but more expensive and much less portable. It more portable then a desktop but also much less powerful and more expensive,
Ry said:
I have my iPhone 3G on Prepay. I’m a lite user and spend around $10 a month.
A few more thoughts:
1) ‘The smartphone is expensive!!! $3000 or so over the life of the contract.’ What, if you didn’t have the smartphone you wouldnt have a cell at all? You’d incur some or most of that cost anyway with a regular cell.
2) ‘I have a big desktop that does everything I need, the netbook is nice for occasional portability’, ‘I traveled the world’ etc. Yep. but when you replace that desktop I bet most of you will consider a laptop and for most people the difference in power is not important. But of course there will always be people who want a big desktop to render stuff or who are taking long trips around the world… those are edge cases though.
3) ‘Netbooks are selling well!’ Yep. let’s see in 3 years. Initially, they’re cheap enough to try out and see what the fuss is. Come on, $200? Most people will bu one out of curiosity alone. You don’t need a lot to justify that purchase… but will they buy another when this one dies? Or have a lot of those buyers gone “eh, it’s not bad” and aren’t enthused enough to buy a second one in 2,3 or 4 years?
I have my iPhone 3G on Prepay. I’m a lite user and spend around $10 a month.
1) I don’t think you can even get data on a US iPhone without a contract.
2) How much did the iPhone cost without a contract?
Btw, for those suggesting that Apple is late to the game with their own Netbook, they effectively sold one roughly 12 years ago. The eMate 300 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300) is about as close to being a Netbook as the original Netbook was, sans the Wi-Fi networking that didn’t exist as a consumer option back then: it was much smaller than the laptops of the time yet had a full keyboard, it was lightweight, had desktop class apps (though running on a lightweight OS, Newton), and for its time was comparatively cheap. Unlike netbooks though, it also had very decent battery life (over 20 hours on a single charge).
Posted to provide some perspective to the impression that Netbooks are somehow a new phenomenon (btw, I don’t mean to imply that Apple invented this form factor either – there were plenty of small Windows laptops back then too, e.g. from Sony, which would probably be called Netbooks today).
netbook just like a big toy.
With all due respect to Michael Critz, I never said an Apple tablet would be a great idea.
What I said is that a tablet form factor may be a different product category from a laptop and a hand-held device because you interact with it in a different way. In other words, my thesis is that different product categories come about when we have a thing we interact with in a different way. Thus, a toaster is different from a toaster oven because we interact with a toaster in a different way than we interact with a toaster oven–despite the fact that both have heater elements and both can make toast. Thus, my in-car navigation system is different from my hand-held GPS, despite the fact that both draw maps and plot my location on a map, and both can give directions to a given location–because one is a hand-held thing I hold, and the other is in my car.
A netbook is not a different product category than a laptop; it’s just a small, cheap laptop. However, the iPhone is a different product category because we interact with it in a different way. A tablet may be a different product category; if it is designed so we interact with it in a different way then it’s a different product category. But if a tablet requires me to boot it up and use it on a table top, and runs the same old operating system (MacOS X, Windows XP, etc) then it’s just a laptop I don’t have to unfold.
Netbooks are likely to stick around, though only the geekiest will pretend they’re anything other than small, cheap laptops. People knocking the subscription fees are delusional because netbooks are bought by the ultra-cheap, never-buying-a-data-plan consumer or by people who already pay for a smartphone (and a $2k+ main system, a media server, etc).
iPhone launched only 2 years ago and only now are we starting to see real competitors in functionality. It will take a few more years, but smartphone functionality will get much better. In the laptop space, products like the MacBook Air will also become more common and powerful. There will always be the small and cheap, but laptops of usable size (12″ and 13″) will become the new hotness. Dell’s 12″ mini @ $400 will converge with the 13″ Air @$1500, both at approximately 3 pounds. As others have noted, netbooks are creeping up in size and power.
Regardless of how cheap a 9″ unit can be, people complaining about small phone screens are going to be the first ones to buy 12″ and 13″ laptops that actually fit their hands.
I love your names for the different fast food chains. The more popular “apple pie” wins not just because of its form factor, but because the taste is a triumph of modern food technology – see Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation.
I didn’t know you could get “fried pies” at Southern Chicken Place.
The article has some points, but it ignores several important things about netbooks.
The price: if you compare an non contract iphone to a netbook the iphone costs 300% more. Even with the contract subsidy they are almost equal in price, and the netbook can be used without a contract.
Handheld use: with a swivel hinge and a touchscreen a netbook becomes a tablet that is easily used handheld.
Volume: with the economy in the toilet and the CA interest in open source textbooks and netbooks becoming cheap enough to become the etextbook, schools are going to be purchasing zillions.
Browsing and using web apps is much more practical on a netbook.
Netbooks can run standard desktop apps, so they are easily your backup work machine.
A phone, u operate w/ only one hand. It’s really light & tiny, barely noticeable, strapped to the wrist when running. In the meantime, even though, I’m eligible for a upgrade, I’m keeping my Verizon Wireless RAZR V3m. It’s my GPS device, music & videos player, Facebook updater, games player, songs identifier, yahoo mail & hotmail accesser. @ 2.82 oz, too bad, the Samsung Juke doesn’t have mobile web. Instead of a full-sized laptop, my ~2 lbs Acer Aspire One, 9 in, w/ a 6 cell always on standby, Verizon Wireless broadband & Google Chrome, fits nicely n my extra-small Timbuk2 messenger bag, & I’ve carried carried it n my Camelbak Hawg on hikes. @ home & work, it’s desktops w/ big screens. No smartphone 4 me. Dock? synch? isn’t that what the cloud’s 4? In the future, I’d like to have one of those HUD glasses, or a brain implant.
Drew said:
Joey says to look at what people are buying. When people buy their primary computers, they buy laptops, not desktops.
Nobody would dream of replacing their desktop computer with a laptop. Nobody would dream of replacing their PDA with a phone.
Michaelc said:
An iPhone off contract costs $600. What netbook can I buy for $150?
Those definitely cost more than $150, and the interaction still is different.
California spent about $55 per student last year on textbooks and other instructional materials. You’d have to get netbooks for $165 and make them last three years to fit that budget. A low-end netbook costs about $200 to manufacture. They wouldn’t last three years in kids’ hands; the batteries wouldn’t last three years, period. Even if you could get free content for every class, you’d have no budget for other materials. Computers don’t manage themselves, but you’d have nothing left over for IT. And you’d be spending just as much, when the whole point was to cut the budget.
The Kindle has lower manufacturing costs right now, even with $50 in wireless chips that a textbook replacement doesn’t need. They’d be cheaper still if they were selling in the millions. They’d be easier to administer and probably last longer.
Most likely, though, schools will use print on demand.
Here’s the golden question:
Who actually owns a netbook and still agrees with the conclusions of this article? Most of the people mocking netbooks have never used one, let alone own one. The last person I told about them thought that their iPod Touch was ‘just as good’.
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