Shrinking the Net
I find myself fascinated by the new direction taking place in laptop computers. As if the 15″ screen laptops weren’t small and light enough, companies are now selling the smaller 9″ screen laptops, often referred to as Netbooks. At first, I thought this a novelty; somewhere in the “isn’t it cute” category. But now that they are being taken seriously and Dell is pushing their version heavily, it looks like this is a viable new direction. After some thought, I realized that people are trying to make their smart phones do double-duty as mini computers. It all sound convenient, and maybe if I had “young eyes”, meaning I have to hold things further away to read them now, I would actually like that. It seems so unrealistic to include the offerings of the net on such a small screen. But the 9″ screen is large enough to handle all of your internet tasks, and most from your other needs. And, it’s small enough to fit in a purse or a briefcase. Personally, I use my phone just for phone calls…I know…how 1990’s. I could get used to toting around a Netbook computer, even if I had to bring it along in a special bag or case (do I hear secondary market?).
The prices of these machines are also attractive, most running in the $300 range, with sales and deals that are almost irresistible. That is quite interesting for a new product which usually costs more until it’s been on the market for a while. Now I see Dell is marketing a buy one, get one for $50 special. You buy a 15″ notebook and for an additional $50 you get the 9″ mini. I find the marketing of the two an interesting approach. It implies that you might use the 15″ at the office, or for more serious work, then hop on the mini for your social networking and browsing. One item I find interesting is that it offers the downgrade from Vista to XP; yet another insult to the poorly executed Vista operating system. Vista would probably be a killer on the smaller machines; it takes up too much in resources to operate.
If the trend needs any further validation, according to an article I read at VentureBeat, Apple, who has always said they weren’t interested in that market niche, is indeed working on a Netbook, or something like it, with Mr. Jobs himself directing those efforts. Not that I’m Mac biased (yes i am), but this will probably be the best of the batch (To be fair, I also own a Dell laptop and desktop).
It seems that the younger audience may have directed a lot of the direction of new media and it’s use, but I suspect this trend will be fueled by everyone, with many niche uses as well as a ubiquitous adoption.
