There are a whole lot of rumors flying around about a purported Apple Netbook form factor.
I think it’s inevitable that Apple do something in that direction, or face a sudden loss of market share.
Consider Moore’s Law:
Moore’s law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most notably, 1975, Moore altered his projection to a doubling every two years [13]. Despite popular misconception, he is adamant that he did not predict a doubling “every 18 months”. However, an Intel colleague had factored in the increasing performance of transistors to conclude that integrated circuits would double in performance every 18 months.[14]
The upshot of this is that we should be seeing increases of power and drops in price of the computers in general use, and that increase/drop should be quite noticeable over a two-year time frame.
The netbooks represent a manufacturing response to Moore’s law. At a price point of $400-$500 per unit, they are about half the price and weight, and double the capacity of “laptops” of two years ago.
Two years from now, look for the $250 Netbook/Ebookreader/personal phone/tv decoder weighing a pound or less to debut on the market. If Apple fails to move with this trend, it will quite quickly render itself irrelevant in the marketplace. Snazzy style alone is not enough to keep a hardware business running.
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If Apple doesn’t kick it into gear on netbooks, I’m just gonna have to hackintosh OSX onto a an Intel machine. And I think Apple knows there are a lot of folks like me out there. I think we’ll be seeing something soon. Apple knows the idea is being tossed about of putting Apple into Dow Jones. The Dow isn’t gonna do that unless it thinks Apple is cruising high. And, obviously, Apple is talking to Dow Jones, giving them a snapshot of upcoming product lines and directions.
You mean like this, Chef?
As for talking to Dow Jones, that’s not really necessary. They are talking to analysts, though, and people who buy big chunks of stock are listening to those analysts.
Hm. Actually, Apple’s analyst ratings aren’t all that spectacular.
Exactly like that, Bill. I’m waiting to see what the Samsung NC-20 is all about in this regard.
I dunno about that NC-20, Chef. At $500, it’s at the high end of Netboooks price-wise, and at 3.3 pounds, ditto for the weight. My Lenovo X-61 weighs about the same, and would kick its ass all over the place. 12″ screen and full size keyboard, too.
Although on price, the NC-20 wins.
I’m not sure whether I want to go small or really small at this point. I’m gonna have to head over to the local Samuel’s pretty soon for a little test driving.
Well, I am still quite happy with my HP Mini1000. 2.2 pounds, plenty of horsepower for surfing, email, and blogging. Wish the battery life was a bit longer, though. I’m getting about two hours now.
I need a keyboard that’s large enough and has enough action for fast touch-typing. So far the netbooks I’ve handled have been too small.
I haven’t had any problems with my HP. It’s something like 95% of normal.
Recently acquired this one for my wife’s use between home and her work. Initial reaction was quite good easy to use keyboard, very good screen definition and easy to see for old eyes. Had a slow WIFI speed in my home but that was because the on board wireless card had trouble with my 801.11b wireless router as soon as I upgraded the router to a G it was fine. It came with MS works on it which I ditched and put Open Office on it instead. It was bought through Costco for less than Dell’s list price plus 2 year warranty and free shipping.
I’ll note that the MSI Wind is one of the fully compatible models from that gizmodo link. I have one of the cheap ones and like it quite a bit. I don’t
I have this guy and like him quite a bit. I have monster hands* and can touch type with it.
*My dentist asked me how I can floss my teeth with hands that big. I told him I need one of those toothbrush shaped tools.