Print
With all the talk about the hot new tablets and smartphones at this year's Mobile World Conference, it's easy to forget about the lowly netbook. Once the cool kid in the computing club, netbooks have suffered an amazing fall from grace, with sales plummeting even faster than Congressional approval ratings. How bad are things for netbooks? About a year ago, Lenovo was pumped about three new netbook offerings. Now, the company has stopped selling netbooks whatsoever on its website, and doesn't know if it will ever offer them online again.
The netbooks that were online have all sold out, and Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman told PC World that they are "not being replaced in the near future." There's no word on whether or not Lenovo will continue to sell netbooks in stores. (Although, to be fair, Lenovo's IdeaPad S110 "mini notebook" toes the netbook line pretty hard.)
Part of the reasons for Lenovo's decision to dump netbooks: online sales of the company's A1 and K1 tablets are much more brisk. It's the same "tablet killed the netbook" story we've heard over and over again, and we have to say, between the abundance of cheap laptops and the ability to pair tablets with Bluetooth keyboards, the future of netbooks isn't looking so hot. Are any of you diehard netbookers? Why?
Comments are closed on this article
Keith E. Whisman
February 28, 2012 at 3:45pm
Good riddance. The only netbooks I approved of were those that came with high quality touch screens and converted into tablets.
livebriand
February 27, 2012 at 10:43pm
If Microsoft hadn't imposed such strict limitations for Windows 7 Starter, maybe there would be far more netbooks now, and then people would be less likely to buy tablets, which are a market dominated by the iPad and Android devices (NOT them, yet they dominate the netbook market). Yep... they screwed themselves over... And I bet a lot of people who buy netbooks (or tablets) won't buy ultrabooks, due to the price.
I have an AMD E350 netbook, 4GB RAM, and it's a good secondary machine. (Thinkpad x120e) THAT is what netbooks should be. NOT slow Atom ones with a crippled version of Windows and 1GB RAM. I can see an atom netbook being useful for something like a home server where you don't need much power but will be running it frequently and therefore want low energy usage. The atom ones have good battery life and all. They're just slow.... do it right, and you can succeed.s
d3v
February 29, 2012 at 11:22pm
Yep. Netbooks only became popular because of XP's longevity. XP could run on anything and because MS failed to make a better OS for so long it provided a boost to sales of slow but highly portable computers. It's like the opposite of what happens when MS releases another version of bloatware. People rush out to buy the latest computer so that it can run the latest MS software.
OCFRED
February 27, 2012 at 7:06pm
I have a 5 or 6 year old laptop still swifter and about as tough on batteries as most Netbooks; tried one for about an hour and returned it, viva la ARM!!
bjfiodf9d
February 27, 2012 at 5:56pm
???WELCOME TO
http://ai.vc/zd
It is the best online website?
have some cheaper and more good things.
Best quality, Best reputation , Best servicesshirts,bags,hat and the decorations.
if you like to order anything you like.
More details,
please just browse our website Quality is our Dignity;
Service is our Lift.
enjoy yourself.
thank you!!http://ai.vc/zd
Dartht33bagger
February 27, 2012 at 3:56pm
I've never cared for Netbooks, Tablets or Ultrabooks. I'm perfectly happy with my "bulky" notebook that has much more power and a much larger screen/keyboard.
