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Netbooks -- Who buys them?

7 points by devin ↗ HN
I got into a discussion with a coworker last night about netbooks. He made a few assertions that I had a tough time disagreeing with. First, he asked coworkers (4 or 5 of them) if they knew anyone with a netbook. Most people didn't even know what a netbook was, and offered up a friend or relative who owned a Kindle instead (This may well warrant a separate discussion of its own). Of the rest of us, we came up with two netbook owners. Two. Of the people surveyed, there was very little to desire to own a netbook. I would rate these coworkers as fairly tech-savvy. I don't mean to pass this off as any sort of factual representation of the market, but I think it begs the question:

Who are the big buyers for netbooks in your opinion?

Do you think the current economic client plays to the advantage of the netbook market, or is there a significant disadvantage insofar as netbooks are perceived as luxury items-- a little brother to your existing laptop?

Do you own one? Do you want one? Why or why not?

15 comments

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ashimpact
I just bought one to try use as a little brother to my existing laptop. I spends several hours during the day away from the office but with the ability to do work (coffee shops, etc). I thought that instead of lugging my primary workstation around, I could use the netbook. Jury's still out since it's only been a few days, but the smaller keyboard does affect my productivity/typing speed.
brk
This pretty much mirrors my reasons.

I move around a lot, meetings at remote sites, day trips, work for a few hours from some random coffee shop.

Also, I have my sideline job where I host a growing cache of customer servers in a datacenter I have some space carved out of.

Lastly, I spend most of my weekends at a second home and in the summer spend a sub-part of those weekends on my boat.

In all these cases a small, portable, light-weight machine is often all I need or want for the basic tasks I'll be doing. A netbook (Asus EEE 4G) with my Verizon USB EVDO dongle gives me portable computing, with or without Wifi available. The fact that it's pretty much impossible to store anything personal/private on it (especially if you don't store passwords in FF) and the low cost make it basically disposable if it gets lost/damaged/stolen/dropped in the lake.

If 99% of my job was spent in a cubicle I would probably have less use for it.

Sometimes it'll sit for a month, sometimes it will get used almost everyday.

hcho
Anyone who uses public transport for commuting. Newspapers keeps being interesting for so long.
whatusername
my brother who is studying for his masters (not in a tech field) has one.. light + portable + cheap is a big win for students.

My wife wants one on the light + cute angle.. (A MacBook Air would be great - but it's pretty pricey to browse facebook)

rsayers
I have the Asus eeepc 4g. I use it daily. When I bought it, my only computer was a Macbook, and I wanted to start using a desktop again as my primary machine so I bought the eee for times when a mobile computer would be useful.

It's been a great little machine, I like the fact that its small and can handle bumps and drops which would kill hard drives in a normal laptop.

earl
The big buyers will people who don't want to spend $1.5K on a macbook. Particularly once you start seeing these w/ built-in EVDO / whatever cards, I think they'll be everywhere. Consider most people on the internet -- do they use it for more than google, gmail, fb, twitter? Do they need a $1500 device or a $300 device?
pietro
My 12 year old niece has one. She uses it for school and absolutely loves it. A normal laptop would have been too heavy for her to carry around all day, and the netbook's keyboard is a better size for her.

I would love to have one myself for travelling. I don't code much when I'm travelling, and it's plenty big for general web surfing.

chrisjhatch
I own one, MSI u100 series.

I had been looking at laptops for awhile, and after a lot of discussions my older brother and I decided that the netbook was the way to go. It's cheap, portable, and can handle whatever I throw at it. Sure, I can't play game after game on it, but I can play the basics.

I also use it as my work computer. (Mainly school). Mostly reports and stuff, but I like to fool around with photoshop and stuff.

All in all, the netbook is a solid choice for the middle to lower class. Not all of us can afford an apple device, as they can be pretty pricey. More and more netbooks are coming out that are just as good as the lower end Dell laptops that your grandparents/parents buy in the attempt to show that they are "hip".

mdonahoe
My roommate bought an eeepc after his old laptop died suddenly. He only really used it for the internet anyway, so a cheap netbook is a quick fix until he has the time and money to pick out a bigger/better machine.

As for myself, I think the netbook+desktop combo could be pretty cool. I've been using my MacBook as my primary device for a year, and I have found that it isn't really comfortable for serious use and is too bulky for computing on the go.

jws
I have a low end 9" eee from best buy. I use it as my test server, comes with its own console! I'm switching to linux containers for test servers, but having totally separate iron makes resource measurement easier (possible).
TomOfTTB
I've been testing them for use in my company and now that there are ones with virtually full size keyboards we'll probably start deploying them in some places.

I mean, obviously not to the finance department but to those people who only do mild word processing. The benefit is (a) they're cheaper, (b) users like them because of the portability and (c) the limited options makes it harder for users to screw them up by installing stuff they shouldn't (though they still can).

wallflower
The netbook is almost smaller than the size of a hardback book. You can literally grab it and your keys and head off to the coffee shop. The performance is that of a 5-yr old notebook (900mhz Celeron) but it's mostly about looks than crunching graphics/video editing. I have the Asus EEE 8G.
menloparkbum
The big buyers for netbooks are people in Asia.

I had a 1st generation Asus EEE, it was fun. However it had some limitations and when I got a new Macbook Pro I stopped using it and sold it on ebay.

However, I'm now on vacation and really wish I had a netbook instead of my MBP. If you travel light the size makes a difference and the netbooks really are much smaller.

Now that they are sold at stores like Best Buy (when I got mine, only one specialty store in the Bay Area carried them) I would guess that almost anyone would buy one.

hedgehog
I carried the EEE 701 over about 8 months of travel and it was great. Bump the RAM to 2GB and install your OS of choice and it's really a pretty capable machine. The screen is a bit small but the new round (EEE 90x and stuff from Dell and whatnot) look like they solve that problem. Two tricks I learned:

- The 701 fits inside a one gallon zip lock, letting you transport it in the rain and on boats without too much worry.

- There's a extension for FF 3+ called "Default FullZoom Level" which lets you change the default page zoom level. On a small screen that makes a big difference (think about all those 850+ pixel grid layouts on a 800px wide screen).

- Compiz works great on the GMA950 and the Expose-style window switcher works really well for small screens. On GMA950 Compiz breaks GLUT but other than that I didn't run in to any problems (or: make sure your code builds _and_ runs before you leave town).

mooism2
There are people who buy a netbook as a complement to a full size laptop or desktop. And there are people who buy one instead of a full size computer. I have friends in both categories.

I own one, which I bought as a replacement for my MacBook when that died. I love being able to use it on the bus. I was pleasantly surprised at the screen not seeming tiny. I slightly regret not buying a Dell netbook, because that doesn't have function keys I can accidentally press all the time.

I may yet buy a full sized laptop, but I am managing without one for now.