Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.misc > #13302

Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook?

Show all headers | View raw

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] - view raw

On Mon, 13 Mar 2017, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

> RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> quotes:
>> "The mini-laptop's market niche got swamped by the iPad and the
>> phablet," writes Salon, since the stripped-down hardware of tablets
>> made them cheaper to produce. But now netbooks could be making a
>> grassroots-fueled comeback, "thanks to the lower costs in electronics
>> manufacturing and the fact that individual investors can come together
>> to crowdfund projects." An anonymous reader quotes Salon: Michael
>> Mrozek, the Germany-based creator of creator of the DragonBox Pyra,
>> says "I never understood why they were gone in the first place. I have
>> no idea why you would use a tablet. I tried one, and it's awkward to
>> use it for anything else than browsing the Web"...
>
> And yet they’ve sold very well. Could it be that lots of other people
> have a practical use for them, despite his personal dislike? Perhaps he
> should do some market research into why they’re successful before going
> into competition with them.
>
I dont' know.

I got a netbook, an Acer, in the fall of 2009.  I'd wanted something 
portable, the PDAs had died off except for high end, an iPod was a bit too 
limited but more important, controlled by Apple, I didn't want a full 
laptop, so I got a netbook.  It was last of the first wave, so it runs 
Linux and has only a 32gig "hard drive".  The ones with WIndows and 160gig 
hard drives had already hit the market, though not by much.

It was okay, but it wsa a bit bulky for portable operation without a table 
to put it on.  I had limited use of it, since I wasn't out near wifi that 
much, and no wifi at home.  A year later, I crushed the screen, it was 
under a book that I kneeled on and there went the screen, so that put it 
out of portable operation.  One of these days I'll resurrect it with an 
LCD monitor for some sort of home use.

But they hit on a cusp.  If the iPad hadn't arrived yet, it came soon 
after, followed by other tablets.  I would have gladly bought one of those 
HP tablets  when they went into clearance mode a few months after 
interruption, but I missed the deal.

I did get a Blackberry Playbook in February of 2012.  For what I wanted in 
portable, that was good, it could fit in a large coat pocket.  I wasn't 
going to be writing, so I could live with the onscreen keyboard.  It got 
better that fall when DSL and wifi arrived at home, so the tablet was more 
than to read ebooks and use when out near free wifi.

That was one thing I wanted a small device for, ebooks.  The netbook was 
too clumsy for my use, though if the keyboard could swing out of the way 
like some later laptops, that would have been okay.  I decided that I'd 
rather pay some more money and get a full tablet than a dedicated ebook 
reader.

Then in 2014 I won a Microsoft Surface 2 tablet, it's larger and more 
capable, close to a full blown system except it ran WIndows and had a 
32gig "hard drive".  And that's gotten a lot of use.  I use the desktop a 
lot less, except when writing.  I did find a keyboard that works with the 
Surfact 2, but have never bothered with it.  For the things I want a 
portable device, a tablet is what I want, no keyboard in the way.

If netbooks hadn't arrived, I'd have waited, and then gone directly to 
Tablet.  If PDAs hadn't diminished by that point, I'd have gotten one of 
those, though maybe I would have been unhappy by the screen size.  Tablets 
are really just large screen PDAs, but they came after a gap, as if they 
were different.

   Michael

Back to comp.misc | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2017-03-13 00:53 +0000
  Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2017-03-13 08:41 +0000
    Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2017-03-13 10:00 +0000
    Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-03-13 12:29 -0400
  Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2017-03-13 15:49 -0400
    Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2017-03-13 21:07 -0400
      Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2017-03-14 08:44 +0000
      Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2017-03-14 15:04 -0400
        Re: can crowdfunding bring back the netbook? mausg@mail.com - 2017-03-15 17:12 +0000

csiph-web