Stephen, the reason many of us prefer the netbooks over the 15″ laptops of equivalent price is precisely because they are not 15″ laptops.

I had a Fujitsu tablet, 12″ screen, that travelled with me maybe 2% of the time when I went to meetings. Why? Because I didn’t feel like lugging the stupid thing. I’m a big guy, but I do a lot of travelling to meetings, so every pound counts. The Fujitsu was only 4.5lbs or so, but enough to make it a chore.

Now I have my HP2133, and it goes nearly everywhere with me. I love it. Of course, these should be secondary computers for nearly everyone; I use my desktop for serious content creation, but for quick note taking, surfing, etc., I can’t beat a netbook for my usage patterns. 5 hour battery life, great application performance, gorgeous screen (indoors, that is ;-) ) and a fantastic keyboard.

I’m going to go against the grain a little here and say that the Netbook phenomenon is not as amazing as some would suggest.

The novelty of working on a small screen and using a small keyboard wears off pretty quickly. Additionally, the portability of these smaller devices gets compromised fairly quickly by generally short battery life (not always, but still often).

The mini-note from HP is a good idea. It has a good keyboard and a decent screen. But at $750 for the most useful configuration, you’re at a price point where you could purchase one heck of a nice 15″ laptop.

I don’t know… I’m not sold on these devices yet.

The PCs that are being replaced are desktops. Standard size laptops are replacing desktops and netbooks are replacing standard size laptops. Personally, I think the sweet spot for netbooks is a screen size of about 8-10″ and about 1 to 1 1/2 lbs. Not quite there yet but getting close. As others have said, power is not a big deal since most are not using the netbooks for movies or games.

I think *some* people in the notebook industry are concerned, like people who work in the regular notebook sectors. On the whole, notebook makers should be pretty happy that they created a new market for 2nd and 3rd notebook buyers. These small notebooks aren’t going to replace bigger ones because their screens are too small and processor aren’t powerful enough.

Don’t shoot the messenger, indeed. Well said James.

@ CariqDeville

Of course we’re already seeing Netbook prices creep up as OEMs add more features and spec that move away from the original e.g. bigger screens, more storage etc. But, whether or not Sony and others are entering the market, the cat is out of the bag. Users don’t need most of the horse power available, most of the time.

That quote from Fujitsu was a direct quote to the New York Times in the article referenced and thus not “old news”. Instead of shooting the messenger if you don’t believe that statement then call Fujitsu on it, why don’t you?

“essentially what they are trying to do is “prepare” all of us the the upcoming rising prices of netbooks. since they realize these devices are going to become lots of peoples primary machines they want to increase their profit margins.”

BINGO!!!

couldnt have said it better myself.

the reason companies are backtracking is simple, when these devices were originally being marketed it was as a secondary machine only. which meant NO profit loss, only pure gain (because you still need a primary PC). but now that consumers are seeing these PC’s are powerful enough for 95% of their daily tasks they are passing on the bigger more powerful PC’s. why? because for the AVERAGE user if you dont need to watch HD movies or play games then you really dont need the extra performance dual/quad core offer.

essentially what they are trying to do is “prepare” all of us the the upcoming rising prices of netbooks. since they realize these devices are going to become lots of peoples primary machines they want to increase their profit margins.

it seems like the only people that fall for this PR nonsense are bloggers & their readers. i’ve been in the back alley of the news world for 29 years & can translate what they really mean without even trying anymore. honestly it doesnt even take a degree to do it either, even your average teenager should know better.

They should have rewritten the headline: Don’t but a Netbook pleads PC industry! As I noted in my response, last week Intel began talking down its Atom chip for Netbooks:

Intel CEO Paul Otellini was quoted as saying: “(Atom) is less than a third the performance of our Centrino (processor). You’re dealing with something that most of us wouldn’t use.”

http://www.last100.com/2008/07/21/dont-buy-a-netbook-pleads-pc-industry/

How curious.

@pimlicosound: At a time when a lot of people are complaining about how netbooks aren’t $300, your post is refreshing, and I’d agree.