Analysis - Are sub-notebooks just a fad?

[Bob Crabtree]

I'd be gutted if i had spent nearly 2k on one of those carbon Sony's - the idea behind needing power on the move is just an opinion - the problem witht he tech market as far as computers is we all think that more pwer is better - when in 99% of cases its a complete waste of time, money and power.

Matt.

Until now, laptop makers have largely offered to consumers what the makers themselves want people to buy.

Now, though, they've started offering consumers what they actually want - and that, I believe, is why this new generation of PCs is going to be such a massive hit.

Let's be honest, you don't need a lot of PC grunt to do the things that most people want to do most of the time - email, web browsing and word processing.

Bottom line? Yes, Matt, I believe you are 100 per cent correct.

Bob

[PatrickMoorhead]

I also think the category is here to stay. Some format (screen size/spec vs cost) may be more successful than others, and in the long run we may see manufacturers focussing on the most successful ones, but I am sure that the market of the category is big enough.

I did a study tour last summer, and that would've been the perfect place to use one of those sub-notebooks: I was on the road a lot so it needed to be portable, sometime stayed in a hostel where the storage box too small for a full sized laptop, not too expensive in case anything happens. And while it may not be very comfortable to type reports, I only needed to do a series of relatively small reports at a time. A PDA/Smartphone, even with a keyboard would probably be less efficient.

Even at £400, it's still cheaper than many 10.4" to 12.1" 'Ultra portable' laptop of the past. I do favour cheaper models (toward £200) because they are no substitute for a main PC for me. But there may be people (e.g. those frequently write reports on the road) who use them often enough to justify a beefed up model.

One of the bigger challenges if it indeed becomes a niche market is the ability for the market to sustain it. In other words, some product categories have a real hard time staying alive if they arent shipped in the 10's of millions range. The entire value chain from component suppliers to OEMs to manufacturers to distribution channels to the end consumer all need to make some kind of profit or make a profit in a related, leveragable segment.

[Bob Crabtree]

Patrick,

You are right, of course, but this is a product category I believe will grow to be very big, so the issue shouldn't arise.

I really do reckon that they'll be akin to mobiles, with every IT-aware family having one per family member.

Bob

[PatrickMoorhead]

Since this blog, I have tried the Asus 901, HP 2133, and the MSI Wind. I was personally expecting a lot from the Wind given it has a hard drive and Bluetooth, serious shortcomnings IMO of many of the other models. The challenge I personally had with the Wind was battery life...... I only got 1 hour, 30 minutes. Maybe this is the tradeoff for the hard drive, maybe because of the 3 cell (less expensive/smaller/lighter) battery. But..... that level of battery life didnt even cut it for even inside my home. Forget about outside the home. On the SSD front, I personally experienced many challenges with them...... can't fit 1/100th of my media content on it, so taking it outside of the home becomes a big challenge. I could stream some of the media with the XP versions inside the home. Also, with XP SP3 and those mini-notebooks with SSD that partition, let's say 5GB/5GB, after installing SP3, I continually got the "warning balloon" saying I was out of hard drive space. To uninstall SP3, I needed 143MB, which I didn't have. So I had to go out and buy an external $120 external USB DVD drive and re-image the entire system then "block" SP3 in MS "Automatic Updates" from loading. Sheesh.... how will non-technical users deal with that kind of stuff?

[Scott B]

I think Pat's expeciences and concerns are all legitimate and a mate of mine who was researching the market said that storage was the most painful trade-off for him.

I suspect the finishing line might be when cloud computing becomes more widespread. Then there'll be no need for much internal storage as everything will be accessed online.

Of course Wi-Fi/mobile broadband/WiMax, etc will need to step up to make this an acceptable alternative.

[Flibb]

If you want longer battery life you need to wait for the 6 cell batterys to come out, having said that I get a fair bit longer than you do on my wind, did you use the power save mode? Another way to get better battery life is to use vista, many report and extra 20mins.

[Pob255]

On a side note: here's a new one (well I'd not seen it before)
The other night I was waiting for the night bus and there was a maplins there, so I looked in the window and saw this
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...25532&doy=11m8
Yes the spec's look pritty pants, but it was very small, with a price tag to match and it looks like we have another "cheap" brand mini-laptop on the market and that to me is a big sign of there popularity and staying power.

Being a fad or here to stay is going to be by sales numbers and while "us" performance chasers who demand the most from our specs and our cash, we only make up a small part of the larger market. (heck if we were then pc world would of gone under by now )

[Bluecube]

The challenge I personally had with the Wind was battery life...... I only got 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Blimey - WTF were you doing? I agree that the battery life could be better but I happily get around 3 to 3.5 hours from my battery. That's with light internet browsing and typing.

[baius]

And im not speculating here... i have a HTC TYTN II yes its top for typing but i cant touch type, double the speed of a numpad but half the speed of a keyboard.

You can "tap" only 4 (2x2) times as slow as you can write?
I'm at least 10 times slower using a key-pad (w/ or w/out T9) than my sub-par touch-typing.

I made this point back in May in my AMD blog on the same topic. There are pros and cons to the cheap, mini-notebook design. Looks like the cheap mini-notebook is morphing into the real notebook. I would put the blog link, but I need 5 posts on Hexus before it will let me.

Better start typing then... ;-)

Since this blog, I have tried the Asus 901, HP 2133, and the MSI Wind.

& which is best? (I like the look of the HP, in case you couldn't guess from the above.) This seems to be the only decent thread on Hexus mentioning the 2133. It would be good to see more discussion on it.
(Made this thread: http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-tv-tur...ml#post1501671)