News - Acer takes a kicking from the iPad

[HEXUS]

The netbook and low-end notebook markets are struggling.

Read more.

[kingpotnoodle]

Other manufacturers there have picked up share, I think Acer have probably lost out to everyone else who have picked up their game (not just Apple), especially Lenovo by the looks of it. As we exit the recession and price becomes less of an issue the over-cheapiness of Acer products is not doing it any favours.... too plastic, too bendy etc.

[Scott B]

Other manufacturers there have picked up share, I think Acer have probably lost out to everyone else who have picked up their game (not just Apple), especially Lenovo by the looks of it. As we exit the recession and price becomes less of an issue the over-cheapiness of Acer products is not doing it any favours.... too plastic, too bendy etc.

Yeah, but look at sequential growth. Acer had a big fall in Q4 that isn't accounted for by Lenovo. But you're right - of course it's not all down to Apple, but the growth of tablets is the most conspicuous factor.

[Grey M@a]

I would probably put it down to Acer sticking with the original Acer One design and just small bumps in hardware, whereas Lenovo, HP, Asus, Samsung etc all moved on to 12" ION hdmi HD netbooks. Acer was slow if not still don't have a decent netbook to stand out from today's crop.

[crossy]

I would probably put it down to Acer sticking with the original Acer One design and just small bumps in hardware, whereas Lenovo, HP, Asus, Samsung etc all moved on to 12" ION hdmi HD netbooks. Acer was slow if not still don't have a decent netbook to stand out from today's crop.

Sorry, any manufacturer who ships a "netbook" with a 12" screen deserves "a reet good slappin'" - a portable device with that large a screen is a laptop or notebook.

Rant over, may be Acer are losing out because their netbooks aren't that noticeably cheaper than other manufacturers. And those other manufacturers actually have little things like Service Manuals etc available, as well as being (arguably) better built.

I've had an Aspire One for a long time (it's one of the A150 models) and while it's a good machine, I wouldn't have said it was any better than the (approx 10% cheaper) Asus EEE that I saw in Staples at the weekend.

[this_is_gav]

Sorry, any manufacturer who ships a "netbook" with a 12" screen deserves "a reet good slappin'" - a portable device with that large a screen is a laptop or notebook.

There is a market for 12" netbooks - schools for example, where the battery life is crucial in classrooms of the future. There's also size and weight to take into account. Generally most wouldn't want a large netbook with a bog-standard Atom processor, but something like AMD's Brazos is more than adequate for use somewhere like a school, blurring the line between upper-end netbook and CULV chips.

Don't get me wrong, I personally wouldn't buy anything like that, but if they sell, then obviously companies are going to make them.

[Kumagoro]

I think netbooks have been stalling because of atom. There isn't a big difference in power (until dual core)
from when they originally came out so not worth getting a new one, and I reckon once the fusion netbooks
come out in full force then sales will pick up.

My wifes netbook a 1.6GHz single core Atom is hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard & mouse etc and
is just about useable for internet and office use so a new fusion one would be a big step up.

[crossy]

There is a market for 12" netbooks - schools for example, where the battery life is crucial in classrooms of the future. There's also size and weight to take into account. Generally most wouldn't want a large netbook with a bog-standard Atom processor, but something like AMD's Brazos is more than adequate for use somewhere like a school, blurring the line between upper-end netbook and CULV chips.

Sorry, didn't explain myself - I wouldn't regard a portable device with a 12" screen as a "netbook", instead I'd call that a "notebook" or more likely "laptop". The Dell C400 I had as work issue a while ago was a 12" screen and that's definitely a laptop.

So what's confusing me is why device A is called a "netbook", whereas device B, with a similar spec is a "laptop/notebook". Or is it down to use of ARM/Atom chips rather than Core something?

And I'm not alone, Erica Ogg @ CNN wrote (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-20/t...age?_s=PM:TECH):

Can we all agree on something? There's no longer a difference between a Netbook and a notebook.

Thanks to Netbooks' move to more features and larger-size screens, the distinction between the two can now be considered little more than marketing speak.

which just about sums up my feelings.

Here's one for the zimmer-racers out there - how long before some bright spark decides to rechristen the mini-tablets (8" screens or smaller) as "tabloids"?

[this_is_gav]

To me: low powered portable with no optical drive = netbook.

Still, it's hardly as clear-cut as that with CULVs and Fusion and so on and the line will only be further blurred in the future, so you're probably right, we might as well just start calling them all notebooks again.