Tablets Killed the Netbook Star?

[poofyhairguy]

We can at least conclusively say we've entered a post-netbook present, as Q2 2011 marks the first time their numbers have been eclipsed by tablets, according to ABI Research.... Cost apparently isn't a driving factor, as the firm notes that tablets pack an average price of $600 -- nearly double that of their trackpad-toting brethren. Oh, and in case you were wondering, 68 percent of tablets shipped were of Cupertino's flavor.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/25/netbooks-slip-under-tablet-shipments-achieve-has-beeen-status/

 

[foghorn67]

I think it's the rise of the ultrabooks. MBA, and the like.

 

[ViRGE]

I think it's the rise of the ultrabooks. MBA, and the like.

I'd say it's both. Pressure from above and below.

 

[Oyeve]

Win8 on tablets will or could kill net books including the mba. IMO.

 

[MrX8503]

Looks like Steve took out the netbook market like he said he would during the iPad1 release.

 

[gorcorps]

I question those numbers... $600 as the average price for a tablet? How do they get that? I can only think of one or two that have ever been that high in price, and the rest should bring the average down.

 

[TheStu]

I question those numbers... $600 as the average price for a tablet? How do they get that? I can only think of one or two that have ever been that high in price, and the rest should bring the average down.

Because the 64GB iPad with 3G is $830, sell one of those for every 2 16GB models and there you go, $600 average price. Also $600 is the price for the 32GB model, which I am sure they sold plenty of.

 

[Munky]

Anyone predicting a "post-PC future" falls quickly in my ignore list, including Steve Jobs and his ilk. The average consumer has no need for a netbook, when the majority of his time is spent posting status updates on facebook, watching youtube and playing simpleton games. But that doesn't mean there are no other people who wouldn't touch a $600 tablet with a 10 foot pole, and who require more capabilities from a computing device than what their phone can do.

 

[preslove]

Cheap laptops wounded the netbook star. After Asus released the Eee, the average price of entry level laptops dropped to compete, so people started buying cheap laptops instead of cheap netbooks. THEN the iPad came out.

 

[MagickMan]

I can believe it. I went by the college last week (Uni. of Tenn.) and I saw iPads everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of them. It was like I'd walked into an Apple commercial. And the students weren't just screwing around with them, they were doing papers, researching, using Facetime, etc.. It was really shocking and pretty damned cool. The only people who didn't have iPads were using MBAs and a couple of kids had 13" MBPs. There was one guy in the library who had a Galaxy Tab, but that was the only non-Apple product I saw.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

I agree with Preslove. My touchpad is alright but I wish I would have gotten a netbook with nvidia ion graphics instead.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

The netbook niche is dead. The issue they have is while they are more portable than a laptop, they offer less functionality. The keyboards on all the ones I've seen are smaller than a standard keyboard and are thus, crappy to use. Since most of them rely on a mechanical hard drive they are slower to start up, they run a full desktop OS, so they have way to much overhead operational wise, and since the form factor is so small, they typically max out at 2GB RAM, and with Windows 7 and running any apps that just isn't enough.
With a tablet, just hit power and it's on. Top tier tablets, ie Apple, Asus, Samsung, all get 7-9 hours on one charge of real hard use. None of the netbooks I've used can come close to that. They may stay on for that long with no use, but watching a video or playing some web games kills the batteries on them.

 

[shortylickens]

Oh look, its this thread again.


God damn we are [redacted] pathetic. Rarely have anything original to say anymore.

As for me: I've owned a Playbook, iPad 2, Xoom, couple Archos and Touchpad.
Returned them all. Still using the Acer One. It might be slow but its a real computer. I can do real computing work on it. The others are just toys. Very nice, expensive toys that dont provide utility equal to their price tags.

No profanity in the tech forums, guys
-ViRGE

 

[Mopetar]

I'd lay a lot of blame at the feet of Intel. The Atom CPUs available today aren't terribly much better than those available when netbooks first started shipping. They had no real competition in that space and no real incentive to improve their offerings. Add in the lower margins on those parts and they couldn't care less if netbooks sucked and pushed people to buy better notebooks with more expensive Intel chips in them.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Meh. Personally, I'd rather get a $200 Kindle Fire and a $275-300 AMD Fusion C-60 netbook and upgrade it to 4GB of RAM. Much faster than single-core Atom while still delivering 6-7 hours of battery life. I think spending $500 on an iOS/Android/BlackBerry tablet is pretty crazy.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I agree with Preslove. My touchpad is alright but I wish I would have gotten a netbook with nvidia ion graphics instead.

Lol, I hope to forever replace my ION netbook with a Transformer 2.

I'd lay a lot of blame at the feet of Intel. The Atom CPUs available today aren't terribly much better than those available when netbooks first started shipping. They had no real competition in that space and no real incentive to improve their offerings. Add in the lower margins on those parts and they couldn't care less if netbooks sucked and pushed people to buy better notebooks with more expensive Intel chips in them.

Not only were the CPUs bad- the GPUs are TERRIBLE. Most are just the same PowerVR SGXes we get in cell phones. That is pathetic.

 

[Ns1]

The netbook niche is dead. The issue they have is while they are more portable than a laptop, they offer less functionality. The keyboards on all the ones I've seen are smaller than a standard keyboard and are thus, crappy to use. Since most of them rely on a mechanical hard drive they are slower to start up, they run a full desktop OS, so they have way to much overhead operational wise, and since the form factor is so small, they typically max out at 2GB RAM, and with Windows 7 and running any apps that just isn't enough.
With a tablet, just hit power and it's on. Top tier tablets, ie Apple, Asus, Samsung, all get 7-9 hours on one charge of real hard use. None of the netbooks I've used can come close to that. They may stay on for that long with no use, but watching a video or playing some web games kills the batteries on them.

yep my friend has a netbook with Excel that he never wants to do work on cuz Excel sucks so bad on it.

He just waits until he gets home and uses his PC...

 

[theeedude]

I think it's the fact that most people already have a crappy notebook but don't have a tablet. There isn't a good reason to buy a netbook if you already have an old notebook that's working fine. Tablet is at least something new.

 

[McWatt]

The netbook niche is dead. The issue they have is while they are more portable than a laptop, they offer less functionality. The keyboards on all the ones I've seen are smaller than a standard keyboard and are thus, crappy to use. Since most of them rely on a mechanical hard drive they are slower to start up, they run a full desktop OS, so they have way to much overhead operational wise, and since the form factor is so small, they typically max out at 2GB RAM, and with Windows 7 and running any apps that just isn't enough.
With a tablet, just hit power and it's on. Top tier tablets, ie Apple, Asus, Samsung, all get 7-9 hours on one charge of real hard use. None of the netbooks I've used can come close to that. They may stay on for that long with no use, but watching a video or playing some web games kills the batteries on them.

My stock Asus netbook lasts 11 hours on a single charge, something no tablet can match. It also boots in 17 seconds from the power button to a working desktop, or in less than 2 seconds when suspended. Tablets take longer than 17 seconds to boot from a cold state and in suspend mode their battery life is no better than my suspended netbook.

In essence, the difference between tablets and netbooks is the same as the difference between netbooks and notebooks: less functionality for more portability. I think that the notebook to netbook jump and the netbook to tablet jump is similar in terms of portability. The netbook to tablet jump is much worse when it comes to functionality, so while I see the usefulness/portability number as pretty similar between notebooks and netbooks, it takes a big drop over in tablet country.

 

[Ns1]

nm, no purpose.

 

[Aikouka]

Even though tablets ship more, I do rather miss an actual keyboard when it comes to tablets. Even though I own an iPad 2 and a TouchPad, I'm eagerly awaiting ASUS's Transformer 2 announcement to see how good (*crosses fingers*) it will be.

Because the 64GB iPad with 3G is $830, sell one of those for every 2 16GB models and there you go, $600 average price. Also $600 is the price for the 32GB model, which I am sure they sold plenty of.

Just keep in mind that the terms shipped and sold do not mean the same thing.

I think it's easier to see if you say that Apple has 9 different iPad 2 models and only one of them is below $600 (don't get all frivolous with me over 1 cent either :|). Even though the 16GB WiFi model is the most popular, it doesn't take much to bring up the average. Especially since the next cheapest model (32GB WiFi) is $600 and it just keeps going up from there (as you displayed with the 64GB 3G).

 

[Mopetar]

Not only were the CPUs bad- the GPUs are TERRIBLE. Most are just the same PowerVR SGXes we get in cell phones. That is pathetic.

Would you rather have Intel graphics?



PowerVR it is then!

 

[TheStu]

Even though tablets ship more, I do rather miss an actual keyboard when it comes to tablets. Even though I own an iPad 2 and a TouchPad, I'm eagerly awaiting ASUS's Transformer 2 announcement to see how good (*crosses fingers*) it will be.



Just keep in mind that the terms shipped and sold do not mean the same thing.

I think it's easier to see if you say that Apple has 9 different iPad 2 models and only one of them is below $600 (don't get all frivolous with me over 1 cent either :|). Even though the 16GB WiFi model is the most popular, it doesn't take much to bring up the average. Especially since the next cheapest model (32GB WiFi) is $600 and it just keeps going up from there (as you displayed with the 64GB 3G).

I realize that shipped and sold are not the same thing. Apple reports sold and Google and their partners are reporting shipped. That is why Apple has 68% of the SHIPPED market, where if you looked at the SOLD market, that number is higher (by how much, not really sure, but I would guess about 80% or more).

Also, it is $1 not $0.01 jeez...

 

[randomlinh]

meh, "netbooks" are defined as what? atom based? Intel killed their own market because it hasn't really improved. Personally, I find tablets too expensive for their purpose. But that's me. I also don't like most of the form factors. I'd much rather have a 7-8" tablet like the Fire, and an 11" ultraportable. And it doesn't need to be MBA like. I just want the internals of a MBA... in an HP DM1z. Where is that machine and how much is it.

My stock Asus netbook lasts 11 hours on a single charge, something no tablet can match. It also boots in 17 seconds from the power button to a working desktop

what do you have?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Would you rather have Intel graphics?



PowerVR it is then!

Lol, good point. My SGS2 plays mkvs better than any Intel GPU I have seen.