I don't care how "smart" your smartphone is, it will never escape those corporate shackles. Smartphones are simply not free enough to deliver the type of democratic transformation that netbooks -- mobile PCs cheap enough and fast enough and good enough for everyone to afford -- absolutely will.
In Europe, at least, smartphones are sold unlocked, and can be used with any WiFi-- so I don't really see in what sense they are "not free enough", or shackled to any corporation.
They also usually fail the "Runs my software." criterium. The most smartphones still have gatekeepers on what software you can install on them (with the iPhone being the primest example). And even the ones that let you install any software don't usually let you install software that can do anything because of security concerns.
Hopefully Android will win and this won't be an issue, but for now it definitely is.
General population does not have this problem. They do not care about feature lists, MHzs of CPU, they do not count watts and do not carry replaceable batteries. They do not give a damn how open or how closed the ecosystem is.
Either device works for them or it does not.
I guess very few geeks get that, and Jeff is sure not one of them.
And it would be a mistake to think that Apple is going to release something along the lines of the slate MS presented at CES. The rumor goes, that Jobs has asked, what good the the new tablet device could do besides browsing internet in the restroom. I guess they are not going to release one if it does not have an answer to this question.
The general population cares about being able to do what they want to do on their machines. If there's software people really want they they aren't "allowed" to run on their machine by the gatekeepers, they will, as they have countless times in the past, vote with their wallets.
Users don't care about whether the platform is open directly. But they do benefit from the openness.
An example that has been beaten to death; Google Voice. On my open phone, I dial with the normal dialer and my call is connected via Google Voice. On the iPhone, that is not possible. You have to go to a web page, dial a number, and wait for Google to call you. Not a good "user experience".
Symbian, the most popular OS on handsets of 2009 (according to http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/05/27/comparing-smart...) lets you run any software you want (unless specifically locked down, which I've never seen) and even allows you to install Python with a built in on-phone interpreter.
A lot of people seem to act as though the iPhone is the second coming but it's not. The main reason the iPhone does better on the net seems to be more about the quality of the built-in browser than anything else.
I wouldn't call that "thing" a netbook, but a small laptop. The iBook was about the same size and nobody called it a "netbook".
For me "a netbook" it's something similar to a product really called Netbook, the Psion Teklogix's "Netbook Pro". It was a little laptop with touchscreen, flash storage, and an Xscale processor running Windows CE.
I used to work for a warehousing company, and warehouse managers loved it. They could browse the Intranet, run a TN5250 terminal, answer email, etc... at any point of the warehouse, carrying almost no weight and, the most important thing, with near zero waiting time. It just booted in seconds. It was outrageusly expensive, may be something like 2000eur.
I understand that's the device Google has envisioned for its Google OS (but much cheaper obviously). A non-x86 CPU, flash storage, may be a touchscreen... something just different from the laptop you would use to run Windows, not just smaller.
I agree fully. I've been largely disappointed with the netbook market simply being low-end laptop PCs. Something like the Touchbook might actually interest me (but give it more cores, please).
I'm not sure about being cheaper without the Microsoft tax. A few months ago, I was browsing a variety of netbook models and found no significant discounts for Linux. Dell actually charged more for Ubuntu than XP on one model.
I think the reason is all the bundled trial software; they make enough money from the bundling to offset the Windows license and maybe even make a little profit. I think this, more than any pressure from Microsoft, cooperative marketing or lack of user demand is the reason PC manufacturers are reluctant to offer Linux and make it hard to find when they do.
The thing I find with netbooks is that almost everyone is universally happy with them: geeks and non-geeks alike. It seems the only people really complaining are technology writers looking for more readers.
People are happy with netbooks unless they expect their laptop to be a desktop replacement.
As the owner of a nice beefy desktop, I find my eeepc to be delightful. Hour for hour, I probably even spend more time on it, but I never have to feel the frustration of not being able to do something, because I have my desktop machine.
Most netbook owners I know also have laptops (usually as their primary desktop replacement). So I guess laptops have becomes desktops and netbooks have become laptops as far as people are using them now.
Beware of sample bias: People who have netbooks may be universally happy with them, but you're not hearing from the population who found the keyboards too small to type on comfortably (even for short-haul typing such as emails) and opted for something with a full-sized keyboard. Jeff found a model with a full-sized keyboard, but those are very recent. Stores in my area don't stock them yet.
It's not really sample bias; had those people returned their netbooks or complained bitterly how small they are, then I'd have posted an entirely different comment.
I didn't even want a netbook, it was given to me as a gift from someone looking specifically to get me a completely superfluous technology item. I didn't think I'd use it since I have a really nice laptop. I have no complaints with the keyboard -- it's the lack of vertical pixels that is annoying.
Also companies who sell expensive laptops (eg. Sony), and the companies who supply them expensive laptop components (eg. Intel, Microsoft). This may have something to do with the tech writers' sourness on netbooks too.
He seems big on the "no monthly contracts" thing. But an increasing number of netbooks are being sold with data plans, and there's no reason to think this trend won't continue. Consumers prefer the monthly fees and subsidized purchase price to the lump sum buy-it-all-at-once price, even though it ends up costing them more. The idea that you can buy a semi-useful service and get an essentially free netbook is a very psychologically (if not economically) appealing notion, and one that I am sure companies will increasingly exploit.
I did a lot of transatlantic flying this past year. I bought an acer aspire one, gave it 2gb of ram, bought a 9 cell extra battery, installed windows 7 ultimate and never looked back. Between both my batteries, I have 16 hours of constant laptop usage. It's enought to get me from barcelona to san francisco without a plug in.
I really couldn't be happier. I just never think about running out of power any more. And, I have a full dev box at my disposal that's lighter and smaller than most of the books I carry around with me to read.
A very philosophical approach, but the main reason I have a netbook is that I can carry it with one hand and it does most of what I need a computer to do. I can read man pages about wget on the bus, I can test out little Ruby ideas I have and see what happens. I can send out a quick message to my friends. Just a really neat little machine. Now that being said, I don't have a smart phone (data plans were too expensive for my tastes) or a regular laptop (too heavy) so maybe my netbook partially fills two technological gaps in my life.
Same here. Pretty happy with the Dell Mini 9 (1.6ghz atom w/ 2gb ram and 16gb ssd) I bought a year ago. It was around $340 and I was able to put Windows 7 RC on it. It's been great for vacations and meetings where I don't want to lug around (or risk theft of) my macbook pro. It's pretty fast too.
I don't know... I wonder if the netbook thing is a fad.
I bought an eeepc. I spent a few weeks hackintoshing / writing drivers for it. That was fun, I guess. It runs sloooow as molasses though. I can see Steve's point.
Tried a few Linux distros... all were either too slow or not powerful enough. Maybe I should try Windows 7?
I don't know if I've just gotten addicted to my dual-core MBP or what. But the aggregate cost of waiting another second or so each page load makes me want to scream inside.
I happen to be recovering from the flu and I spending part of the day hanging out on the couch. Instead of dragging my 15" notebook, I grabbed my recently purchased Acer (1810TZ- same form factor but slightly more powerful than the 1410 in the article).
It's an amazing machine. 11" screen. Dual Core. 3GB RAM. 300 GB HD. 8 hrs of battery life. Pretty good build quality. And I can really do my work on it. $550 shipped.
I really can't think of what Apple is going to deliver with their tablet that at twice the price and no keyboard is going to be any better than this machine.
We have an eeePC at our house. It is one of the seashell models and only 3-4 months old. About two weeks ago, the power supply blew. Once we got a replacement power supply and were able to turn the eeePC back on, the screen had a large, wave-shaped swath of dead pixels at the bottom edge, so bad that the taskbar needed to be moved to the top, in order for Windows to still be usable. I've never had a laptop fail so hard, so soon.
My eeePC 701 from january 2008 has been dropped quite a few times (it has been used as a jukebok among bottles and glasses outdoor and fell on the floor, been used by children, and I regularly throw it away to my bed or couch when I'm done with it) and has no problem. It is rock solid, as written on the box. I actually spend more time on it than my powerful 17" laptop.
openoffice + instant messaging + firefox + media player = ~80% of my needs.
(posted from my netbook)
My EeePc 701 from Nov. 2007 has been rock solid after daily use. I'm now putting it into service as a server. I only stopped using it when someone gave me a 9" Asus for free.
Mine has spent 200,000 miles in my backpack, and it looks the same as the day it came out of the box. (Actually, I replaced the default stickers with some of my own. But you get the idea.)
Thanks for the tip on the 1810 - and hope you feel better.
I have a 17" MBP right now, and while it is one awesome machine.. it's too damn big to haul with me all the time. I'm looking for something small that I can take to meetings or to the coffee shop if I just need to do some surfing/take notes/write a few emails.
I bought a late-model eeePC recently, and one of the biggest behavior changes I've noticed is how willing I am to bring it to meetings. I can grab the thing by the bulging battery pack in the back, and because of its small size it doesn't cause any social awkwardness, as some bigger laptops do by creating a 'wall' between myself and the others in the meeting.
And because of its size, I carry it around like a small notepad. I think this is why netbooks do deserve their own category: they have a different set of use behaviors associated with them than I have ever done with regular laptops.
I must say I'm pretty amazed what my Eee PC can do.
I can have my basic Ubuntu configuration in that little beast -- it's powerful enough so that I don't have to make any trade-offs. I'll just install Ubuntu on it, remove some unused services, copy over my home directory from backups, and I'm done.
With that, I am able to surf the web pretty much like on a "real" computer but I can do that many times with a single charge and it'll last for days. I often take it with me for a weekend trip without the charger and it has more than enough juice to spend a few hours online.
Alternatively, I can fire up Emacs, Slime, JVM and Clojure and hack for five to six hours without charging. And that pretty much tops my priority list. What a little thing that is!
I'd recommend an older Linux distro or Windows XP and using Chrome as your browser (rather than Firefox). My Eee boots in about 25 seconds (15 from hibernate) and feels quite fast.
Agreed. A friend just installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my Asus 1000HE and it's very nice. I'm not a power user or Linux "geek" but have to say I love it. It felt great to completely blow Win XP off the unit... it became a completely new computer all over again after having it for 8 months. Really turned it into a new experience. Very fast. Easy to use. Chrome works beautifully. The whole experience makes XP appear even more ridiculously slow (and bloated) than i'd realized.
Oh, one last thing - Chrome is incredible! What a difference it makes - super fast, quick loading, no bloat. I loaded it at work on an older Win XP Pro unit and it made IE8 look so poorly executed. I've also used Chrome on our fleet of macs at home and am impressed with its speed.
If you have an Asus, there is nothing better than eeebuntu (eeebuntu.org). It's UNR with all the hardware tweaks specific to eeepcs (all the function buttons just work for example).
A default Debian install also recognizes all the buttons. There is no need to use special software for a netbook; they are exactly the same (to the software) as any other laptop.
Haven't tried Debian, but good to know. When I tried UNR, some of the function buttons didn't work (notably the one that turned off the wireless), and two-finger scrolling was really buggy feeling. I had similar problems with Easy Peasy.
Now that you mention it, my touchpad doesn't work right. (It is stuck in "absolute mode", not "relative mode".) I rarely use the mouse, though, so this isn't something that occurred to me to check.
No need to use an old Linux distro; new ones are just as fast. Moblin gets you from GRUB to a working desktop in about 5 seconds, even when booted from a slow SD card.
My completely-non-tweaked Debian install boots in about 13 seconds. And this is with filesystem encryption that severely cripples my SSD. (The raw SSD can be read at about 100MB/s. The Atom can only un-blowfish at about 22MB/s or un-AES at 17MB/s. Ouch.)
Strange. I use my eee as my primary computer when traveling. Obviously my 8-core i7 machine at home is much faster, but this one runs exactly the same software, is super-light, and hardly ever needs to be recharged. It is the ideal traveling companion. It does everything I need it to do; I have the exact same config files on my home desktop as I do on the eee.
I am not sure how one Linux distro could be slower or less powerful than another. Same exact software, slightly different settings. (I use xmonad, which is going to feel fast on any hardware. GNOME/KDE/Win 7/OS X is going to feel slow on any hardware. It's designed to.)
I prefer to be at home with a 24" monitor and an 8-core processor with 6G of RAM, of course, but when you are stuck in the back of an airplane (which I am right now, incidentally; row 30, baby), nothing beats a netbook. When you are at your desk, nothing beats a desktop. (The laptop is truly a cumbersome device. It will never be as powerful as a desktop, but it needs a huge battery to last for more than 3 hours. And, a big screen would preclude opening it when you are stuck in economy class. Would not want.)
This is about the lowest-end desktop you can buy these days. Combined with the netbook, it's much less expensive than a 16" Macbook Pro, for example. (That's why I can't get too excited about laptops. They are underpowered, un-upgradeable, and very expensive.)
The eee runs slow because it is not built well. But there are netbooks that are built well, and one can imagine in the near future when better parts (improved SSDs, better low-power processors, etc.) make their way to netbooks that they well be even better still.
If you want to fix your eeepc and you are willing to put money into it, I'd suggest replacing the hard-drive with either a decent SSD or a decent magnetic disk.
It is very bizarre that netbooks, of all things, are something that people react to in such an idealistic (not sure if that it the right word) way.
There are some interesting debates like cloud vs local power or reinventing (touch screen) vs tweaking (small keyboard) embedded but you can talk about these separately if they are really what you are getting at. Netbooks are just another range of options in the computer family alongside normal laptops, desktops, desktop replacements, workstations, etc.).
Why would anybody possibly object to that? I mean there are plenty of reasons for plenty of people not to by one (I don't have one) or not to personally like them (eg can't adjust to the keyboard).
Why do people object to (or defend) their existence?
My netbook is an old Sony Vaio SRX51P/B that I bought for £2000 back in 2001. It had sat on the shelf for a couple of years as the Lucent Orinoco WiFi chipset didn't support WPA, had 256mb of RAM and the hard drive kept crapping out.
I recently put a 30gb hard drive in, an atheros USB wifi stick and installed Arch Linux on there and it's fantastic. It's not as quick as a modern laptop but is more than capable of basic browsing and xterm-based fun. Aside from the two years that I haven't used it, the overall cost works out at roughly £250 per year. It has a 10.4" screen and aside from the memory is roughly comparable to an EEE PC 701 in terms of performance.
I'm more than happy with it and it still holds a charge, 9 years later.
I wonder if Chrome OS would still fit the requirement of "runs my software". Yes, you can navigate to any web app you want, but there is no control of the hardware.
I think there will be more control of hardware as time goes on. Palm provided methods of accessing hardware in the browser for webOS, I suspect Google will do something similar for web pages that you give permission to.
In Europe, at least, smartphones are sold unlocked, and can be used with any WiFi-- so I don't really see in what sense they are "not free enough", or shackled to any corporation.