Dell Dumps Netbook Line For "Thin & Powerful" Notebooks

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Smart move. The Netbook industry won't be lasting much longer as it is. The role of a small form factor, inexpensive device suited mainly for internet browsing and light tasks is largely already replaced by smart phones. Smart phones weren't quite there yet in 2007 when Netbooks exploded in popularity. This was when the iPhone was still very new and most phones still didn't have a good enough screen or power to be a comfortable internet device.

Now that phones are catching up, Netbooks are becoming redundant. Many people caught in the early Netbook craze have their needs filled by their phones now, while Notebooks are still needed by people who need a portable full sized PC experience. Ultrabooks will still largely be a boutique item for people who are after the thin form factor and are willing to spend for it. The only market Netbooks had is being quickly gobbled up by smart phones, and the few people who desire a slightly larger screen (but still smaller than a notebook) now have tablets to fill that void.
 
Dell was doing good a year or so ago when they started supporting Ubuntu as an OS choice when you buy but MS must have paid them a visit or two because that went away.
 
Technology has advanced enough enough that the tradeoffs that a netbook required are no longer necessary. You can get long battery life without such an under powered processor as the Atom.
 
Kill off the laptop, it's turning into a thin desktop, with overpowered internals and underperforming duration. Portability just means lugging it from one place to another, with use inbetween giving a very limited experience.

What we're really looking for here is a central server (lolcloud) to handle applications we want on all of our devices (office package for example) not putting performance/latency dependent applications on there (which seems to be the fancy of many a tech blogger).

Personally, I would want something on a netbook/slightly bigger scale than having the ever expanding screen of a laptop for 'portable' work. With desktops for when the real business needs to get done.

Hell, at home when working, I connect the laptop to the desktop screen and peripherals to get anything done. Something that could be done using a) the desktop with shared applications from the cloud or b) the much more portalable netbook.

Laptops have so much bloat these days, I don't need a trackpad (a small trackball would be much nicer), a dvd drive (easiliy replaceable by the 'cloud' I keep having rammed down my throat)
 
Note to Dell: If you want to build 10-12" screen netbook-type low-cost systems that people actually enjoy using, use AMD's E-series APU's. At least they won't be disappointed by not getting the performance they expect for HD content consumption. E-series APU's should be used as a baseline for a good minimum spec for any computer nowadays. People expect that HD media should just work without a hiccup, and games support should be there at the start (note: i said "support". Performance should be governed by price). The latest technology support should be there too, hence DX11. Not DX10, like Sandy Bridge, or DX9 like Atom's (which don't meet WHQL requirements, which is why they usually just get Win7Starter).
 
[citation][nom]waethorn[/nom]Note to Dell: If you want to build 10-12" screen netbook-type low-cost systems that people actually enjoy using, use AMD's E-series APU's. At least they won't be disappointed by not getting the performance they expect for HD content consumption. E-series APU's should be used as a baseline for a good minimum spec for any computer nowadays. People expect that HD media should just work without a hiccup, and games support should be there at the start (note: i said "support". Performance should be governed by price). The latest technology support should be there too, hence DX11. Not DX10, like Sandy Bridge, or DX9 like Atom's (which don't meet WHQL requirements, which is why they usually just get Win7Starter).[/citation]
they can't , intel pays them too much
 
[citation][nom]waethorn[/nom]They do make AMD systems, but only on last years platform.[/citation]

they don't make any AMD notebooks
HP, toshiba, Gateway, lenovo have one or two models only, a nice start
 
It seems that many people have somewhat bad experiences with their netbook. I am a minority.

I bought a netbook with N550 atom cpu and 2GB ram in November 2010. I've been very happy with my netbook. I even finished my PhD Thesis with it!

I'll keep using it and future netbook, not because it is cheap, but because it is enough for me.
 
It seems that many people have somewhat bad experiences with their netbook. I am a minority.

I bought a netbook with atom N550 cpu and 2GB ram in November 2010. I've been very happy with it, and I've been using it as my primary PC. I even completed my PhD Thesis with it!

I will keep using it and future netbooks provided available.
This is not only because netbooks are cheap, but also they are enough for me.
 


To each his own I guess, but I certainly don't want to see the laptop market disappear like you suggest. I never liked netbooks. They seemed too much a ripoff from my perspective. Yes they were cheaper and lighter than most laptops, but for near the same money of a netbook with decent specs you could conceivably find a better laptop at around 15".

As for me, I much prefer a powerful laptop. I've got a 17" Toshiba Satelite, though it's nearly six years old now. I plan on getting a 17" Qosmio about this time next year since my Satelite is so slow at everything compared to my desktop. Wasn't that originally the idea behind laptops? The power of a desktop but portability to carry it with you wherever you go?
 
Gee, I guess no one realized that AMD E-series (ex. E350, E450) netbooks really aren't bad, eh? I have an 11" E350 netbook with 4GB RAM and windows 7 home premium 64-bit and the performance is perfectly acceptable for HD video, music, web surfing, and word processing. Chances are that you won't be expecting such a system to do more than that anyway. And who cares if it's not 8mm thick? It's still good enough. I've taken it on plane trips before and it's definitely small enough.
 
[citation][nom]madooo12[/nom]they don't make any AMD notebooksHP, toshiba, Gateway, lenovo have one or two models only, a nice start[/citation]

Dell doesn't make any notebooks with AMD processors, but they make desktops, so they still have a deal with AMD.

Lenovo has a couple models in the Ideapad line, and 4 different series in the ThinkPad with AMD. HP has many AMD notebooks across all of their product lines (Pavilion, ProBook, and EliteBook). Toshiba has more than 1 model with AMD, and Gateway is owned by Acer, but Acer also has many across it's various brands.
 
[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]... about this time next year since my Satelite is so slow at everything compared to my desktop. Wasn't that originally the idea behind laptops? The power of a desktop but portability to carry it with you wherever you go?[/citation]

Uh, that was never the idea. Desktops will always outrun a laptop. If you do manage to shoehorn desktop-level parts into a notebook (like alienware does) then it's going to weight 14 pounds and get 30 minutes of battery life. Which means you have to be plugged into something. Which means you should have just gotten a desktop.
 
[citation][nom]sissysue[/nom]Dell was doing good a year or so ago when they started supporting Ubuntu as an OS choice when you buy but MS must have paid them a visit or two because that went away.[/citation]

That, or people weren't buying them - or figured they could get a discounted Windows license and still install Ubuntu themselves for free after the fact.
 
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