Netbooks: The present and the future

A little over a year ago, a relatively little known laptop manufacturer called Asus launched the first ultra-portable laptop or the netbook. The market for these netbooks has exploded since then. Several manufacturers around the world now offer products in this computer category (Click here for an interesting news and information web site covering netbooks )

Interestingly, the term 'netbook' was trademarked by a company called Psion that had launched its mini-laptops several years ago. The product was discontinued, but the term was reintroduced by Intel in 2008.

The idea behind netbooks is to provide a very small and light weight, low capability and cheap device that allows users to do simple activities such as checking emails, surfing the web, listening to music etc. However, as as features and processing power of netbooks continue to evolve over time, the line between a netbook and a notebook will get blurred. This leads us to an interesting question - Will netbooks replace laptops completely at some point? Well, if we were to look at the desktop versus laptop example, we have seen that desktops have continued to persist inspite of the rising popularity of laptops and their ability to match or even exceed in certain cases, the features offered by desktops. So, for netbooks to compete with regular laptops, they have to provide the complete features set and processing capabilities of a regular laptop, yet maintaining a low price tag. Even so, netbooks still have restrictions such as small sized screen and keyboard. However, as features and processing power of netbooks continue to evolve, it is possible that that the netbook/notebook market polarizes into small sized laptops similar to netbooks and notebooks similar in appearance to Apple's Macbook Air, providing users the choice between a small ultra-portable device and a large yet light-weight full-screen and full-keyboard device.

There has also been a trend towards providing netbooks with cellphone like contract deals, where the netbook will be sold at a hugely discounted price in return for a lock-in period for using the telecom provider's wireless data services. However, this business model is still in experimental stages and it is yet to be determined whether netbooks will sell more like laptops or more like cellphones.

As of now, the future of netbooks looks bright with the netbook market buzzing with activity and manufacturers rushing to unveil new netbook models with added features. (Click here for a listing of new netbook announcements in Consumer Electronics Show 2009)

However, in the distant future, some disruptive innovation may lead to a smartphone kind of a single device that replaces all kinds of computers including netbooks! Until then, netbooks rock!!