Hardware
Intel Going Sour On Netbooks?
At an IT Supply Chain conference, Stu Pann, VP in Sales / Marketing at Intel, seems to be poo-poohing the whole Netbook craze, of which Intel and their Atom processor is largely associated with:
“If you’ve ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size–it’s fine for an hour. It’s not something you’re going to use day in and day out.”
Pann went on to add:
“We originally thought Netbooks would be for emerging markets and younger kids, and there is some of that. It turns out the bulk of the Netbooks sold today are Western Europe, North America, and for people who just want to grab and go with a notebook,” Pann said. “We view the Netbook as mostly incremental to our total available market,” he added.
Way to sell the whole Netbook idea, Mr. Pann. At least Intel and AMD are now on the same page regarding Netbooks, though. Regardless, I think a set of Netbook talking-points are already sitting in Pann’s email box….
singraham
11/28/2008 at 7:08 am
Oh well. Intel didn't understand what users wanted when they started the whole netbook thing, and it is pretty clear they still do not get it. All thanks to them, by the way, for their lack of insight, which has enabled the netbook revolution. Except for work related projects, which I knock out on my corporate issued laptop, my Aspire One has completely replaced my conventional laptop. It is the machine I have always dreamed of owning. Affordable. Capable. Portable. Perfect. I am not even interested in a 10 inch model.
For more on this check out my blog entry at Cloudy Days and Netbook Nights. Netbooks: too good for their own good?
https://cdnn.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/netbooks-too…
niels
11/28/2008 at 11:47 am
I've been a big fan of the whole netbook movement since I first read about the Eee pc. Having owned both an original Eee 701 and now an MSI Wind I find myself straying back to my macbook more and more often. I can't really put my finger on what's bothering me with the netbooks, but I think it's the lack of screen real estate that makes computing more cramped than it needs to be. Also the design and build quality is what can be expected for a sub 500 dollar device. This didn't bother me too much to begin with, but after the novelty wears off it gets quite annoying that the touchpad on your device is tiny, that there's a million blinking leds and that things get rather creaky.
After having used devices ranging from 7" to 15" I can honestly say that my sweet spot is somewhere in the 12" region. I'm still dreaming of a 12" macbook pro, but in its absense will probably settle for the new aluminum macbook.
GoodThings2Life
11/29/2008 at 3:57 am
I have no gripe against netbooks, but I am really sick of this love-affair mentality of netbooks and the claim that they can be the end-all-be-all for mobile users.
Between this site and jkOnTheRun, I see more blog posts and stories and comments from all of us saying how we're using Device X at Event 1 and Device Y at Event 2 because of varying feature sets, so it's just ludicrous to suggest that a netbook satisfies all those needs. A netbook could never satisfy my work needs or web development needs, so I'm inclined to agree that I wouldn't want to use one for more than an hour or so. My hands would cramp up on such a small device for an extended time.
Don't get me wrong, I am glad people like them and find a use for them, but Pann isn't very far off the mark in his claim that they're better suited for limited use, and they're not going to be viable for everyone.
Frankly, I think this remark should be taken in the same context as Sinofsky's Tablet PC remarks, and I think many tech sites are just stretching it to imply a lot harsher meaning than is intended.
Virtuous
11/30/2008 at 5:40 am
Maybe Steve Jobs was right when he said “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.”