aviaggio

May 04, 2010 at 11:33am

I think there are a bunch of reasons why netbooks are quickly going the way of the dodo, and the other posters have hit most of them.

One that has gone unmentioned is price. When netbooks first came out they were dirt cheap, with many less than $250. But not any more. Now even a low end netbook will run you around $400, and for that price you might as well get a full-fledged laptop. 

And Atom isn't helping. Oh boy, now in dual core. Big deal. It's still a horrible processor. I'd rather have a much faster single core processor than a slow dual core. Cause it's not like you're going to be using it to encode video or play modern games. What exactly are you doing to do in daily use that's going to take advantage of the 2nd core? 

LGA1156

May 04, 2010 at 8:41am

Windows 7 killed the netbook, The atom just doesn't have the power to run Win7 quick and smooth for everyday use of movies, internet, and flash games.  Also the built in Intel graphics are also a major bottle neck that needs to be addressed.  If the netbook runs XP then its like a dream machine once suck with win 7... 

Ilander

May 04, 2010 at 6:05am

Crazy as it might be to believe, the netbook, despite it's low price, is a luxury item.

Here's the deal:

Most netbook customers already own at least one computer, and many own two; a desktop, laptop, and netbook.  The reason to have the first two is to have a fast computing experience oriented toward getting work done and being productive (hence the higher computational power, and ultimately, efficiency).

The netbook is more portable than the laptop, and power consumption is dialed down to the minimum so as to better the user experience .  The best way to explain it is that if a customer doesn't have money for a luxury good, they just buy the necessary one---thus, if the customer needs a portable computing option, it's better for them to purchase a laptop than a netbook due to the productivity increase with a faster chip/bigger keyboard/bigger screen.

This relegates the netbook to an area in the market where power bricks are an annoyance, fan noise is anathema, and "cute" is required in design, because the consumers want that.

Of course, we already heard that desktop and regular laptop shipments are up as of Q1, and it's because people don't have money to waste on products with more aesthetic value and less intrinsic value.

Increasing the performance of the netbook may help, but dual-core Atoms are already available, and their performance stinks.  It's hardly any faster than a standard Atom.  The more I look at Atom, the more I wonder what direction Intel can go to improve performance, because adding a core doesn't do it, and it has no real overhead to achieve higher frequencies (2.0 GHz Atom anyone?).

Netbooks are here to stay, of course, but these days, I think people are "getting by" with a smartphone and a regular laptop. 

TechJunkie

May 04, 2010 at 4:41am

NO! It's just that most people who wanted a netbook already purchased one. At the rate tech is going, if people wait for the next lastest and greatest all the time before purchasing, nothing would get purchased. The slowdown in sales is because of the economy and rightfully so. My netbook has the N270 1.6GHz proc. Yeah, it's pokey, but it does the job so there's no need to upgrade at this point.