Feature Articles

Netbooks versus Notebooks: The New Age Battle

By Aloysius Low - 5 Jul 2008

Notebook, Meet Thy Cousin, the Netbook

Notebook, Meet Thy Cousin, the Netbook

It is doubtful that netbooks will in any way threaten the sales of current notebooks; if anything, the current generation of netbooks are more likely to complement owners of laptops and desktops as an extremely portable travel companion. Based on the performance benchmarks of netbooks currently equipped with Intel's Atom processor, netbooks are nowhere even near the lower end notebooks in terms of processing power. The triumph of netbooks with regards to their staying power, light weight and relatively low cost further categorizes them as the preferred travel companion compared to notebooks.

Depending on who is being asked of their opinions, netbooks may either seem like a toy (to business executives) or a boon for the information age (for students), though the standard caveats do apply. One man's meat may after all, be another man's poison. Factor in the different market segmentation that notebooks already cater to, netbooks don't actually seem viable in the long run with their limited storage capacity (some) and limited processing power. Getting a netbook now may also seem silly, due to the increasing prices of the latest netbooks and the fact that new models are announced almost every other week in this period. Adopting a wait and see attitude could possibly be the right decision in the current volatile netbook market.

On the other side of the equation, notebooks are currently going through a rather stable and mature phase in the marketplace. As mentioned previously, the market segmentation of notebooks remains a strength that has been properly utilized so far. Need a specific type of notebook? There's no fear of not being able to obtain one, if anything, the ability to customize the hardware of a notebook before purchase makes it even easier to fulfill one's needs. Offering a wider variety of designs and configurations compared to its cousin, the netbook, notebooks look poised to remain dominant for the foreseeable future.

That's not to say that netbooks would cease to exist. For many in the developing world, the net-centric usage model is probably exactly their main usage and they could benefit from the lower priced basic variants. And for the rest of the matured markets, the netbook's primary appeal lies in the fact that they are far smaller than traditional notebooks and are good intermediary companions during travel with great battery life. You might argue that smartphones are already getting Internet friendly, but without a large screen or a keyboard, smartphones aren't comfortable or useful enough for any simple productivity needs. On the other end, the notebook's only downsides are its form factor, weight and extended uptime and this is exactly where the netbook sits to fill in the niche usage needs.

In future, when advances in battery technology, improvement in screen technologies and the materials used to build notebooks take place in addition to the ever improving processor/platform technologies (AMD Fusion comes to mind here), notebooks too can offer all the advantages of current netbooks in addition to great performance. In such a situation, netbooks would still exist, but probably take a backseat to the realms of young children's education (think of the Intel Classmate PC ) and improving the lives of the third-world countries with simple and affordable systems. So netbooks might just be a passing phase of development in the next few years to fill the voids where laptops have yet to address.

p.s. John bought a mid-ranged notebook for work and entertainment purposes. He even forked out a little more than he had expected for a Blu-ray optical drive. Jane on the other hand was happy with her netbook that she had gotten for a decent price. It was slightly above her budget, but she positively adored the pinkness of her new small and handy netbook.

 

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