Netbook Sales Growth Outpaces Full Notebooks
Are netbooks just a fad? Not according to the latest sales figure breakdowns from DisplaySearch. In fact, it netbook growth nearly doubled that of notebooks.
In Q2 2009, the total notebook PC market (both netbooks and full sized laptops) posted strong sales past the 38 million mark. The netbook market was particularly strong, growing 40 percent over the previous quarter, nearly doubling the still-impressive 22 percent growth rate of notebooks.
Netbooks were notably more popular than notebooks in Latin America and Greater China, likely thanks to lower prices making them more affordable to these emerging markets. DisplaySearch also figured that these regions have more first-time PC buyers, making them less demanding of the expanded feature set available on a larger mainstream notebook PC.
DisplaySearch also noted that Asus has been steadily losing share because competitors such as Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba have become increasingly aggressive in the netbook segment.
"Mini-note PC screen sizes have increased steadily, from 7.0" to 8.9” and then to 10.2". Some panel makers and brands are promoting 11.6" mini-note displays, leading to an overlap with ultraportable notebooks. However, the higher prices of these larger netbooks diminish their cost advantage. In addition to many other key players in the supply chain, Microsoft indicated it is their desire to increase the ASP of mini-notes. A significant increase to the ASP of mini-notes may deter consumers that are predominantly using mini-notes as secondary PCs," said John F. Jacobs, Director of Notebook Market Research.
I'd prefer a 15" - 17" Notebook but that is me because I want the power to game a little (not play "Cry"sis, more like Starcraft to Half Life games and maybe a few newer ones) and do some more CPU intensive task than surfing the web and typing up documents.
I am looking into purchasing a netbook for traveling purposes and business trips.
for me i am intrested in the netbooks cause i would still mainly use my desktop pc but i would need to spend some time using it to see if i can put up with the small screen
"Oh I can buy Jimmy a Netbook and an iPod for the price of that Laptop!"
If you need a tiny computer, why not take that same $300 and pick up a good used 13" laptop and get a lot more power?
I disagree... If I were buying my Son a laptop for School i think a Netbook is perfect for those needs. There is no need for a $1200 unit to create word docs, use a calculator, cruise the net and check your mail.
I also think for many business needs Netbooks are a good buy as well... These people just like school kids don't need HD Movies or even a CD Drive for that matter.
I already have a sweet Desktop and a pretty nice Laptop... thus a Netbook is not required. I will be considering my "needs" on my next purchase and not excluding Netbooks from the equation. (I'll end up with a 2k laptop, lol)
Depending on how new you meant. I play Starcarft with Pentium MMX 166MHz, and HL1 with Athlon 1400+/Ti4200. Atom is fast enough to play any 2D games, and, if you have Ion, could handle most games before 2004. Maybe except Rome:Total War, but I could be wrong.
Doom 3 and HL2 actually opened the new age of monster gaming rig with the introduction of OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9c. That made 2004 a remarkable year of gaming history.
With everything extra low, Crisis may just be barely playable with Atom/Ion combination. I've done that with Athlon X2 4850e and GeForce8200. It was laggy, unpleasant, but otherwise still runs.
mp3 players?
pc's and laptops are not being used to their full potential just
like most of the people using the software and just want the latest
version of the software even if they don't really need it specially
if they are high school students.
I also think that many netbooks are used as secondary computers and
for example here in Mexico city they are becoming very popular because
they are cheap and they can be helpful even to a college student without problem because most college students here in Mexico live in their parents house so they can have a desktop computer to do the "hard" work and they can use the netbook as a small computer to make word documents, use old versions of photoshop(i have photoshop cs2 installed in mine and works ok not great but ok), autocad drawings(i have autocad 2007 installed and again works ok), so i don't see the problem with them and even if they are somewhat limited because of the price i can buy a new netbook in one year and dump the old one and do the same the next year, also if my netbook gets lost or stolen is not as hard to replace the computer as it can be with a laptop so i can give one to my little sister without having to worry so much about the laptop and what happens to it
By the way i am a Computer engineer so i know a thing or 2 about computers and i still think that they are great
good luck
If you're going to do some audio/video editing or some gaming, or even some pretty big number crunching through statistics programs, a higher end computer may be for you, but for a lot of people, the function of netbooks or cheap laptops is all they need.