Three Reasons Why Netbooks Just Aren't Good Enough

by Michael Arrington on November 29, 2008

Three Reasons Why Netbooks Just Aren't Good Enough

The debate about Netbooks, which are very small and very cheap laptop devices, is beginning to heat up. The category is only about a year old but sales are expected to top 5 million this year.

Lots of people think Netbooks are the next big volume market because they allow people who previously couldn't afford computers to own one. People got so bullish on the devices that sales projections reached 50 million units by 2012.

I've had a chance to test many of the units, though, and I can say that the promise is much bigger than the payoff. Perhaps that's why Intel is rethinking whether the devices are as great as everyone's expectations.

A typical Netbook has a 7 inch screen, an Intel Atom or Via Nano processor, a solid state (flash) hard drive and a keyboard that's 80-85% standard size. Most have Wifi. Some have other bells and whistles like bluetooth, a camera, etc.

I find Netbooks unusable for three reasons: they're underpowered as PCs, the screen is too small for web surfing, and the keyboard is so small that effective typing is impossible.

The basic problem as I see it: Netbooks are designed to appeal to two very different markets - the price sensitive and the size sensitive. The two are really mutually exclusive.

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