Computex and future of netbooks
June 2, 2009 by Marc
Filed under Netbook News
I just read a brilliant article by Tim Bajarin at PCMag.com, entitled “At Computex, New Chips Herald a New Netbook World”.
I am not going to republish the article here, please go and read the original, but will summarise the main points.
Computex is basically an industry event where device manufacturers that you would probably never have heard of (Foxconn and Wistron) display their latest wares to equipment manufacturers that are customer facing, such as Dell and HP etc.
Tim’s experience there lead him to the conclusion that “the netbook movement is a major shift within the industry itself—one that will change the meaning of portable computing and eventually the economics of the PC industry itself.” Notice how he is not referring to netbooks, but to the netbook movement. Netbooks were merely the catalyst to start creating more highly portable and highly connected devices.
He goes on to discuss how consumers want more from Netbooks today, like being able to handle 3D graphics and high-quality video. These issues are being taken on board and can be seen in some of the latest netbooks like the Lenovo S12 (with its Navidia Ion chipset) and the HP Mini 110 (with its Broadcom Crystal HD Enhanced Video Accelerator).
Basically Netbooks became popular as they were cheap, were portable and alowed one to surf the web and check email. Now we want more, and netbooks are having to evolve to have much higher spec while keeping size and cost down. This is leading to brand new technology being developed, which can only benefit the consumer.
Read the full article at PCMag.com
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