Tag Archives | Netbooks

The Cost of Chrome OS: How About $250 or Less?

When I wrote about Google’s experimental CR-48 Chrome OS notebook last December, I guessed that it might cost about $449 if it were a commercial product. That seemed high for a device that was entirely dedicated to accessing the Web (and nearly useless when you couldn’t get online). And a bunch of people told me my guestimate was too high.

Months later, nobody has announced any detail on the Chrome OS machines which will supposedly be shipping in just a few months. But there are rumors–courtesy of rumor kingpin Digitimes–that Asus has plans to release a netbook for $200-$250 in June. One that might conceivably run Chrome OS. (I say “might conceivably” because Digitimes’ sources say that Asus “should” use either Chrome OS or Android on the machine–which is a whole lot vaguer than saying that Asus will use either one of those operating systems.)

Could Asus sell a decent Chrome OS laptop with an 12.1″ screen and built-in wireless broadband for $250 or less? That sounds aggressive to me. But if they can manage it, the deal sounds a whole lot more appealing than the $449 Chromebook I envisioned. And if they can sell a clamshell device at that pricetag, couldn’t they whack off the keyboard, add an on-screen one, and have a plausible low-end tablet?

 

 

 

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Enter the Notbook

Here’s a nice piece from Engadget’s Joanna Stern on a class of portable PC–roomier and more powerful than a netbook, but compact and minimalist compared to traditional notebooks–which she calls notbooks. I like ’em myself–and despite the “not” in her nickname, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them become the dominant form of laptop over the next couple of years.

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Chrome OS Update

Good story in the New York Times on Google’s Chrome OS, with some juicy tidbits (a Google honcho says that 60 percent of businesses could dump Windows for Chrome OS immediately, and that he “hopes” Chrome OS leads to system administrators losing their jobs.)

I’m looking forward to seeing Chrome OS machines, whenever they show up, but I worry that it’s both outdated (it dates from the pre-iPad era, and feels like it) and ahead of its time (it assumes you don’t want to run any local apps at all). We’ll see.

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Is the New MacBook Air the First Apple Netbook?

Remember Steve Jobs demolishing the whole idea of netbooks back at Apple’s iPad launch in January? I’m a netbook fan, but I still found his takedown awfully entertaining.

Jobs was, of course, positioning the iPad as Apple’s answer to the netbook. But that didn’t make the iPad a netbook, or anything very much like a netbook at all. It was sort of like comparing the world’s best motorcycle to a bunch of ho-hum subcompact cars.

But if the rumors are true, Apple will soon announce a new version of its MacBook Air thin-and-light notebook with an 11.6″ display and a pricetag meaningfully lower than the current Air. Any such machine would still cost much more than a run-of-the-mill netbook, and have a far higher cool factor–and at 11.6″, it could have the acceptably comfy keyboard that smaller netbooks often lack. Even so, it may be as close to an “Apple netbook” as we’ll see. And assuming that such a product is indeed imminent, it’ll be fascinating to see Apple make a machine with at least a hint of netbookishness after the world stopped paying all that much attention to netbooks–and years after pundits gave up insisting that the company needed to get into the game.

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Asus Offers Proof That the iPad Hurts Netbooks

Whether Apple’s iPad is killing netbooks remains a touchy subject, but Asus has added fuel to the fire by lowering its netbook shipments for next quarter.

According to DigiTimes, Asus president and chief executive Jerry Shen acknowledged that the iPad was cutting into netbook sales, which fell short of expectations last quarter. At a conference for investors, Shen reminded the audience that Asus is working on its own tablet and e-reader, but said the company will continue offer the Eee PC netbook line.

There is at least some other proof that the iPad is hurting netbooks. A Morgan Stanley/Alphawise study conducted in May showed that 44 percent of U.S. consumers who planned to buy an iPad were doing so in lieu of a netbook or notebook PC. And why not? Between smartphones and PCs, there might be room for a third device, but four is a stretch, especially when tablets and netbooks overlap in their ability to check e-mail and surf the web. That doesn’t mean the iPad is killing netbooks, it just means consumers will make a choice, which explains why hardware makers besides Apple are trying to push out their own tablets.

Still, I’m taking Shen’s claims about his company’s netbook performance with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that Asus lost netbook market share between 2008 and 2009, and could lose its second place standing behind Acer with strong netbook sales expected of Samsung. Even before the iPad launched, Asus was already seeing flat-to-meager increases in netbook sales. Meanwhile, iSuppli expects overall netbook sales to grow by 30 percent this year.

In other words, Apple’s tablet makes a good scapegoat.

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Jolicloud Netbook OS is All Grown Up in Version 1.0

If you’ve got a netbook, you might want to take a look at Jolicloud. The free Linux-based operating system tries to combine the best of cloud and local computing, and next week version 1.0 will roll out to longtime users.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Jolicloud for about a year now, but never tried it, and wondered what would become of it after Google previewed Chrome OS. Both operating systems are driven primarily by web apps, with an emphasis on storing things online and syncing to the cloud so it doesn’t really matter what computer you’re on. Judging from a company blog post on the latest version and video preview by Netbook News, Jolicloud has not given up the fight.

The key difference from Chrome OS — aside from the fact that Chrome OS hasn’t launched yet — is Jolicloud’s all-encompassing approach to both downloadable and web-based apps. While the OS makes use of web apps like Facebook and YouTube, it also allows for installed software such as Skype and Boxee, all through a storefront that right now has more than 700 free apps.

There are some other neat features as well, like an HTML5 launcher that you can manage through a web browser on any PC, and a social stream that lets you geek out with fellow Jolicloud users. Users who dual-boot with Windows can even access the Windows file system.

If you don’t have a netbook, just take Jolicloud to be another sign of PC appification (the fact that I didn’t coin that term is yet another sign). Jolicloud is among the first to make the PC look more like a smartphone, and with Android netbooks surfacing periodically and Microsoft possibly considering an app store for Windows 8, it certainly won’t be the last.

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Report: Tablets Will Outsell Netbooks By 2012

Forrester Research said Thursday that it expects netbook sales to fall behind tablet sales within two years, having a lot to do with the dramatic success of Apple’s iPad device. While only 3.5 million are expected to sell this year, that number will jump to more than 20 million by 2015 and become nearly a quarter of all PC sales at that point, Forrester predicted.

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