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Monday, May 20, 2013
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Agreed by: Sean Kalinich on 4/2/2009
I think I covered that in the article.
You are right, people do not know what they are buying and kids do really only want to game. I have dealt with that for many years.

The issue I am talking about is the market that the netbook was aimed at. It was not kids, it was not adults looking for a full scale system. It was an in-betwen design meant to bridge the gap between smart phones and laptops.

The leap frog game going on is bad for the market. It creates percieved obsolescence in the same way that the 6 month refresh cycle of other hardware does.

MSI now has a 21-inch nettop. I ask what is the point of that? It is ridiculous to produce a net device with a 21" screen. Just like claiming 5.1 surround on a netbook is. Who is going to game or watch a movie that needs 5.1 surround on a 10 inch netbook?
Well duh? by: General Lee D. Mented on 4/2/2009
The netbook was doomed by marketing from the start. The problem began with OLPC. They started talking about this "$100 laptop for poor 3rd world kids" and people said "Hey! I'd want a $100 laptop for my 1st world kid!" But OLPC couldn't deliver, and when Asus stuck their toe in the water, all that pent-up hype went to them.



The problem (speaking as someone who's been a professional hardware reviewer in a 3rd world country) is that these machines, much like the AMD PIC or VIA's misguided offerings (which I tried to guide but they didn't listen), are marketed wrong. They are marketed as stripped down PCs. People who don't have, don't understand, don't see a use for a PC, ignore them. They never see them, and don't ask for them. They don't walk into a computer store, ever. But they all have extremely high tech devices that are made affordable which they are comfortable using. They're called cellphones.



Back in 2005 I told AMD and VIA (after reviewing the PIC and a VIA prototype) this was the problem. That they needed to partner with the cell companies (and who better to deliver internet service for those devices anyway?), and market these devices as "Super-cellphones", with the same contract subsidy plans etc. They never listened.



So when Asus showed up with the EeePC 700, suddenly everyone went wild for it. But it was too small for adult hands. So they made it bigger. Then people wanted XP on it, and they balked at adding the muscle. Then MSI said "Ok we'll do that then!", and the race was off.



Back in 1997 on efnet, I was using the term "netbook" to talk about the idea of a machine that had no hard disk or CD drive, just some flash for booting a stripped BSD kernel that would connect to "something like wireless ISDN" and then bootstrap the rest of the OS over the network and store the users' files online, hence the name "Netbook". I thought it was inevitable someone would come out with something like this marketed at students, and I even said the formfactor size would most likely match a hardcover book since ergonomics had already honed in on that optimum size for hands. Another hope was a full 180-degree hinge and fold-open keyboard so that it could be used tablet-style (with screen at 180 and keyboard closed) or laptop-style (screen at 90 and keyboard open). I also thought they'd put solar cells on the lid so it could trickle-charge while closed thinking that without a HD it would be viable. I figured it'd be out "in 5 years or so", but I was off a bit there.



So why didn't it happen? Because nobody is marketing to 1st world students. When they try they wind up bending too much to the demands of the vocal minority (hardcore gamers) in that segment. Adults want XP/Vista for themselves, kids want games. The problem is the target is what adults want for their kids, and most adults don't know enough to override their kids' spec demands for a gaming rig "for school".



So the netbook is dead, but it will rise again shortly. Too many people like you are protesting the size/weight/power creep. That means that supply is drifting away from demand again, so eventually someone will spot the untapped market and release low power low cost machine for it. But they'll probably have to use a term other than "netbook" to differentiate it all over again. As for the boot-over-net and files on net features, that'll never happen in the US given the current state of wireless data plans, and that's key to making the concept work.



So, where to from here? Follow the solutions. Next stop is laptop-shaped docking station for smartphones. How's that gonna work? Here's a hint: touch screen phones can double as touchpads. Actually they can do more if you're clever and make use of the fact that it's a touchpad with a configurable display that can add any control buttons you want. So you take an LED-backlit LCD, a keyboard, a battery to offset the LCD's drain and extend the phone's runtime, and dock the phone such that it's right below the keyboard and is exposed. Connection mess? Nope, 1 USB connection. DisplayLink/NoBounds handles the (adequate for 2D) video, keyboard is obvious, maybe add speakers or audio as well, and integrate a USB hub if you want to hook up a mouse or other devices. The only holdup now is software support/drivers really, phones like the G1 and iPhone have more than adequate CPU and RAM to do office tasks, hell spec-wise they run circles around your average Win98-based desktop which did it fine.



That's the only real way to solve the "nobody likes to type on a cellphone" problem. And it solves the wireless data problem too because cell companies will give you "unlimited" data cheap as long as you promise not to tether to a real PC. As soon as they wake up and realize how to do it you'll see a flurry of new designs. And then cellphones will start to bloat so they can play Crysis too...
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