Acer pullouts herald end of netbook

Acer pullouts herald end of netbook

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Just over five years after their inception, netbooks may be about to disappear from the market—for good.

DigiTimes reports that Asus and Acer are the only remaining players in the netbook game, where the bulk of sales originate from "emerging markets." Acer has reportedly stopped announcing new netbook models already, and Asus is expected to halt Eee PC production at the end of the year. In short, "the netbook market will officially end after the two vendors finish digesting their remaining inventories."

Good riddance, I say—assuming DigiTimes has its facts straight. Netbooks may have been uniquely cheap, but their tiny screens, cramped controls, and sluggish hardware made them punishing to use. Tablets, especially convertible models, are a lot more compelling.

The disappearance of netbooks might deal a blow to Intel's Atom processor family. Intel is now making a push into Windows 8 tablets with lower-power Atom silicon, however, and early benchmarks show Atom-powered slates are fairly competitive with their ARM-driven foes, at least in terms of CPU power and battery such as Asus A42-A3 Battery, Asus A2000 Battery, Asus A42-A2 Battery, Asus A3000 Battery, Asus A6000 Battery, Asus A42-A4 Battery, Asus A4000 Battery, Asus L5800 Battery, Asus A42-L5 Battery, Asus L5000 Battery, Asus A32-UL20 Battery, Asus Eee PC 1201PN Battery life. Also, DigiTimes suggests Intel will keep offering higher-wattage Atom chips for embedded systems.

Problem was the original vision kept getting compromised until you ended up with small screen notebook again.

Netbooks were suppose to be small, inexpensive, had limited local storage, wireless and great battery life that provided you with internet access on the go. But first the screen was scaled up and then the keyboard and then it got a hard drive and then it had to run a full size copy of Windows so it needed more memory. During all this the battery life plummeted. Eventually what was the netbook, converged with the small FF notebook in size and price.

So now tablets have taken the netbooks roll as an internet portal. But even now the "need" to add a keyboard is starting to creep into tablet specs. Asus transformer tablets with keyboard ARE the new netbooks, just with a touch screen.

If no-one else will shed a tear for them, I will. A small form-factor, light-weight system under $400 with the availability for a full suite of well-known, well-established productivity software (aka Windows or Linux) is a valuable addition to the market IMHO. To paraphrase Cyril, the benefits of full-functionality, high portability can't be overstated, especially when the system can be readily connected to a full-sized monitor, keyboard and mouse back at your desk.

My little HP mini10 has given me great service for years (even with it's pathetically weak 1st-gen Atom CPU), and I expect to get good usage from it for another few years. If someone were to make a modern version - a current Atom or an AMD APU, 4Gs of RAM, a 10" 1366x768 screen, full Windows 7, about 2.5 lbs with a battery life of at least 6 hours, and a price tag around $350, I'd buy one. It's sad that I won't be given that choice.