Well, I both agree and disagree with his comment. I do agree that people lose interest in netbooks very soon. I, myself, was guilty of such a thing when I bought a 8.9 inch one. I just didn’t like the keyboard and gave up fast. However, I had a different experience when I checked out the 12 inch netbook Zoli had sometime back. I found it very comfortable and liked it very much (didn’t buy it because its hard disk speed was slow then).
Michael Dell, founder of Dell,told an audience at Churchill Club that the infatuation with Netbooks only lasts for 36 hours
I think the so called disillusionment with netbooks happens due to many different reasons. Some of them are
- SaaS is yet to evolve into the natural app choice. People still cling on to bulky resource hungry desktop apps.
- The very design of netbooks is terrible. They have just taken a laptop and miniaturized it without even realizing that the user experience of a miniaturized laptop will be terrible over a long term usage. That is why the rumored Apple tablet is exciting. A netbook should offer an altogether different user experience not a restricted version of Laptop experience. A clunky keyboard and, usually, a terrible OS from the desktop era are not the right choices in my opinion.
- Many consumers consider netbook to be their laptop or desktop replacement. It is not. It is a replacement of laptop during travel.
- A good netbook is still expensive to be considered as an additional gadget.
- With the proliferation of smartphones and iphones, a light weight device for travel becomes redundant.
Well, what do you think? Do you think netbooks have a future or it is just a fad going away fast?
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