Wow cranky people in the blogosphere indeed. I did not see this article as negative, nor would I malign a blogger for wanting to make some money. Very few of us do, more power to the few that can. The truth is mobile computing in all forms is getting very inexpensive (Thank you China Inc.)and at a time where the economy is struggling to stay on this side of a recession and inflation is happening all over, it could not have happened at a better time.

Truly a young technologist or business person can now buy a pretty powerful and portable computer for not much of a dent in the wallet. A very good thing no matter size computer one chooses.

Not everyone carries their “mobile” computer around. so for those, price is a large part of the consideration. Hence the two are clearly in competition. For those who are truly mobile, I would tend to agree they do not compete. No matter how cheap, I’ll never buy another 7lb notebook as I carry my computer everywhere. But for those who just put it on their lap in the living room with perhaps an occasional cross town journey, the weight won’t be as big of a deal. There are many segments of the market.

As “Back to school” nears, I’m sure the deluge of “cheap notebooks” will continue. Didn’t we just have “end of school”?! Geez, we did, but the back to school onslaught isn’t that far away i’d wager.

Sub-notebook enthusiasts have endured high prices for years. It wasn’t too long ago that many of us were shelling out 4 times the cost of the new MSI wind to get a Fujitsu p7120. Now we can get a competitive machine at “budget notebook” prices. It’s a big win for us, but it’s also a big win for budget-minded shopper who will finally have more choices in form factors at the same price level.

Moreover, even if you eliminate price and size/weight, many of the new crop of sub-notebooks are still appealing to me because they were designed with:
* better battery life in mind
* cooler operation in mind
* full Linux support in mind
Any laptop which delivers those features and a compact form is a big win to me, even at much higher prices.

I wouldn’t worry about id James – he’s obviously just a bit cranky this morning.

One thing I did notice is the specs on that Inspiron. That’s a dreadful waste of money and I can’t believe that they would release a mid-2006 spec laptop with Vista in mid-2008.

Whoa there! I’m not sure where all of this ‘ about generating more money from negative posts’ thing came from, and as a long time reader I’d like to say that countTEG doesn’t speak for me!

Now, regarding the post, I think James’ post echoes my own. As an owner of the original ASUS EEE701, price as well as the size and portablility was a major factor in getting one. For the price, the asus was a great impulse buy, and only had smartphones and PDA’s to compete with. However, with the new crop of netbooks, the prices are such now that its not such an impulse buy, and thus considerations such as value for money have to be considered. I mean, at some of the new netbook prices, one could get a ‘real’ laptop, and there are a whole lot of them. All we need is to look at how well UMPCs have done to see that regular consumers are very sensitive to price, especially when you’re bringing something new into the market.

Perhaps I am as big a moron as ld indicates but this was not a negative nor bashing article in any way. It simply stated a fact that as pricing gets closer there are many who will go with the more powerful, even if a bit bigger as I stated in the post. To make a jump that this was a negative article for the purpose of generating ad revenue is simply ridiculous. I am just stating the way it is, like it or not.

especially now after you’ve repeated the samething 40-50 times, enough is enough & we fully understand your political popularized make-me-more-money stance on the “issue”.

ld, you may not believe, but they are actually competing products. Sub-notebook is a new genre created thanks to price and size. Purchasing such niche products takes justification, and I see lots of people having problem getting a underpowered small laptop when they can buy much more powerful ones for the same price. This doesn’t apply to geeks like us who purchase whatever looks interesting, but for majority of others, the needs for sub-notebooks are not even established yet. They need to learn that sub-notebooks can function as a supplement to a main one, and when their price goes over that of the main ones, sub-notebooks lose the merits. We already saw this in UMPC market, didn’t we?

is there anything bloggers WONT write to generate ad revenue (negative articles make more money than positive articles)?

Exactly my thoughts. The latest offerings from Asus, Acer, and others are dangerously close to no-niche line in both of your criteria. I personally think the maximum they can go is $500 and 3 lbs. It may also open up an opportunity for UMPC manufacturers. How about $499, 1.5lbs Q1 Ultra? I think it will do fairly well in the market.