Intel VP says netbooks are "fine for an hour"
By Nilay Patel 
posted November 29th 2008 10:14AM
posted November 29th 2008 10:14AM
Intel's never made a secret of the fact that it developed the now-ubiquitous Atom chipset primarily for mobile devices and low-powered netbooks for at emerging markets, so it's not totally surprising to hear Intel sales VP Stu Pann say the company doesn't see netbooks as potentially cannibalizing sales of its existing processors -- but we are a bit intrigued by his seeming dismissal of netbooks as everyday machines. According to Stu, a netbook with a 10-inch screen is "fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out." That's probably true, of course, but it's harsher language than we've heard from Intel in the past -- and it's more or less in line with AMD's recent decision to ignore netbooks entirely in favor of more capable machines "above that form factor." Of course, Intel execs can pretty much say whatever they want as long as the company is basically the only player in the netbook game, but we think a lot of people actually are willing to use a netbook as their primary machine, especially in this economy. Could you handle a netbook as your daily driver? The comment box awaits.[Via jkOnTheRun]
I'd say the major problem with the netbooks is their price: they aren't really cheap enough. The price of these things has even creeped up since their introduction, so they are getting more expensive not cheaper. Remember they were supposed to be the heirs-apparent to the One Laptop Per Child charitable foundation initiative that Intel went to war against and almost destroyed. The OLPC was also originally known as the "$100 laptop". Neither the OLPC foundation, nor Intel in going to war against it were able to ever reach the volume production necessary to get the price down to that level, thus they weren't able to spawn the production lines that could create such cheap future laptops. Thus these netbooks are well within $100 of the price of low-end full laptops. Why bother with a netbook when you can get a full laptop for a few bucks more? The only thing going for these netbooks is a cuteness factor, which might appeal to women and a few men, but nothing else.
One hour? I heard it was 3 hours with a 3cell and 5-6 hours with a 6cell?
Give me a higher resolution screen and keep those higher-capacity SSDs coming and absolutely.
For what, exactly? I keep hearing "they need more horsepower", "they need higher-resolution screens", "they need real video cards", etc. It's really a surprised to me every time I read some joe who expects a 1-lb. netbook with 6 GHz octo-core CPU, 3-way SLI video card rig, room for 16 GB of RAM, a 30" resolution crammed into a 10" display, the fastest and largest SSD storage devide, 1 million-foot-range somesortof-Wifi connectivity and yet, somehow, manages to bitch about a pricetag that's over $500.
That's actually a great point. I don't consider myself an average joe, nor was I complaining about the price. The post was questioning whether or not netbooks can be viable primary machines. I say yes for most people. With the exception of hard-drive space (and if that's your problem then just stick with a platter-based hard-drive until SSDs become more economical) these machines have more than enough power and capability to perform regular computing tasks. I would be happy to pay much more than $500 to get a higher resolution screen and a higher capacity SSD for my uses, however. I would prefer a little more desktop real estate since I normally compute at 1920x1200. I didn't complain about any of the other things you mentioned, nor did I really complain about the first two. I only referred to the upcoming technology that will really put these great machines in the spotlight.
I didn't mean to touch a nerve; actually I was trying to congratulate netbooks for being so useful and look forward to the technology getting better and better, which it certainly will. You should probably direct your ire to a more suitable target.
They can be a primary machine depending on one's needs, but that obviously varies a lot from one person to the other. At work for instance, all I need is MS Office apps, an email client and a web browser (and iTunes, so I don't go completely bonkers listening to people talk on the phone all day); I don't need a lot of raw horsepower, nor do I need a lot of screen real-estate, so a netbook is fine. At home though, they can't replace the PC I spend most of my time on because I play games; netbooks aren't beefy enough to be a gaming rig and they were never meant to be that anyway.
Many of my friends would caught dead trying to use a netbook for graphic design or 3D modeling, it just isn't for them; netbooks are a good alternative for people who use computers for basic tasks, but it's not a viable alternative for everybody.
@nekomimininja etc
The major benefit to these is that they weigh less than half the average 15" laptop thus it is a valid replacement or supplementary device, some people hate moving around heavy equipment all day.
I got a Del mini 9 for $100 when they did the deal when you buy another laptop (brother bought it)...I use it every day at work cause it's small light and ultra portable. I Haven't used my Sony Viao 14" in months...to big and to heavy to carry around...the Dell mini 9 is great for what I use it for...and worth every bit of $100...it will however never replace my desktop in my office at home...
My daughter loved the mini 9 so for her recent birthday I bought her the Aspire one, much better laptop, better keyboard, 10x larger HD, well worth the $350 I spent on it...in fact I'm jealous. She's a college student and does 90% of her school work on that little thing...
For some it may very well be the perfect computer, for others it's the perfect partner to a better computer...everyone could find a use for one though...I can't see them going away anytime soon.
I've been using an eee pc 1000h for four months. I'm still running xp, thinking about ubuntueee. I did upgrade to 2gb of value ram. It's been great. I can't run any CAD effectively but it meets all my torrent, browsing, email, movies, schoolwork (matlab, open office) and old game (civilization 3, starcraft) needs. I'm a bit of a unique situation because i have my old 20in LCD, G15 keyboard, G5 mouse, 750 gb external, and 5.1 sound from a desktop that the motherboard got fried in. One of my roommates also has an external dvd burner that i use for making .iso files of whatever disks i need.
So when i do work, i just plug everything in and use 2 monitors. Without the extra monitor it's really hard to use spreadsheets and word is annoying but doable. Other than that it's really easy to do things on when it's not plugged in.
I guess the thing about a netbook is if you have enough prepherials it can function as a primary computer as long as you don't have crazy needs.
I still plan to have a netbook someday.
The starting point was to get an HP MINI 1000 for the girl friend for Xmas. She would use it for email & surfing in front of the TV. Then looked at the Dell Mini 12" and it is nice but pricey, then saw the $349 the Dell A860, was chosen. We both need reading glasses so the larger screen seemed the way to go. & suspect the Celeron M560 has more steam too.
Still I can see a ultaportable/packable netbook to take on weekend trips for light duty work someday. Vision dictates the larger screen for extended work.
I like to think that I do use a "netbook" as my daily workhorse, considering I use a 12" iBook and it's not good for much more then netbook-like stuff. .p
If your time isn't worth very much go ahead and use a netbook.
There are hundreds of studies that show that a large screen space improves productivity. This is especially true for people doing photo/video editing or programming and data analysis.
ya. but not everyone does photo editing and data analysis..
Im posting this comment on my Dell Mini 9, which after it FINALLY arrived I upgraded from 1gig of ram to 2. I own my own business managing networks for small businesses and of course fixing computers for regular folks. I take my Mini 9 with me on the road. It is super light, looks nice and everyone asks me about it. Several of my customers have ordered the Mini 9 and the Mini 12. I am going to order the Mini 12 next week. I use this machine more than my XPS M2010, my Alienware desktop or any of the other laptops I have laying around. The battery life is great and the price is perfect.
It's not my primary machine, but my Ideapad S10 plays second fiddle to my desktop, and I do, in fact, use it day in and day out for schoolwork and out-of-house writing. Shame on you, Intel executive.
At work we use HP webpc's
Basically flash drives with processors.
No moving parts other than the DVD drive.
Open office is put on the flash memory
Everything else is saved on the server or my flash drive.
8+ hours on a charge.
It does what I need.
Intel is whining as usual, they're just not making as much money as before because of that new market.
Funny considering the Atom is an Intel processor, are they whining manufacturers actually put that little CPU to good use? Or that consumers are starting to realize you don't need a quad-core CPU and 8 GB of RAM to check your email and surf the web? Crazy, huh.
I use my Eee PC 1000HA as my main machine. the only thing i use my desktop for is working on graphics projects and playing games.
There is absolutely no way I could use a netbook as my every day machine. I go crazy without at least 2 20'' displays. I can live with a 22'' wide. There's no way I could live on a crammed keyboard with a 1024 x 768 display. NO WAY!!
I have two primary machines: a home-built desktop with all or at least most of the latest and shiniest toys available, and an Eee 901. As much as I love my big machine, the Eee certainly gets more use. I use it every day for work and occasionally my own amusement. Frankly I think it's a system that works very well.
I do think netbooks have a massive roll in the market of today, and tomorrow. With cheaper SSDs entering the market and the Atom being the best and only netbook low voltage possessor, i think consumers will find that a small screen doesn't make much of a difference when it comes to doing every day tasks. Even watching movies, TV, playing low end Games is possible on todays netbooks. I think intel is making a horrible decision saying there only good for an hour, iv spent way more than an hour on my 901, having even thought about bringing my 15.4in with me on the road since.
I actually DID live with a netbook as my primary/only PC for about two months this year. I went to college with only my Asus Eee 901 (running Ubuntu 8.04) while my 17" laptop was out of commission. I ended up buying a full sized keyboard for when I was at my desk and had an external hard drive and a selection of mice (a VX Nano, Logitech MX500, and Razer Copperhead) and I was fine. It was a pain, sure, living with that tiny screen, and watching high-def movies, DVDs, and ripping CDs was a bit of a pain, but I managed. I would prefer to have a desktop with a nice monitor or a larger laptop, but only having a netbook was definitely livable. Now that my larger laptop is back, my Eee is still used more often. I take it to class with me, or just have it on my lap while watching TV. If I go home for a short break, I'll leave the 17" laptop and just take the netbook. The 17" primarily serves as a gaming rig and a compter to download larger files to, as it has the hard drive plugged into most of the time. But overall, having a netbook as a primary PC isn't a terrible thing, and would probably be even easier for a lighter computer user. If I didn't play games or have similar multimedia uses as I currently do, it could probably live full-time with just the Eee.
I don't see the point of netbooks either. They don't fit in a pocket, so they get pushed into the next portability segment, "fits in a bag". But there they have to compete with much more capable laptops. Give me a 13-15 incher over a 8.9-10 inch pos any day.
Once you can get me a folding screen 10" screen device that fits in my pocket, I'm game.
I completely agree. He'll, even my "high power" Core 2 Duo laptop doesn't have anywhere near enough performance to satisfy me. I personally can't stand using any less than a 6k series Core 2 Quad as my primary computer, with a 24" monitor (thinking of adding a second one). A computer is a focal point of my life, why would I settle?
I have used ultraportables for a long time, but my previous subnotebook, a Fujitsu P2120, despite being upgraded to the maximum, was only finally replaced this year by an MSI Wind. The problem was the price. Notebooks of a similar form factor, but with the higher end components are ridiculously expensive. I don't do anything complex on the go anyway, mainly web surfing and document editing, but the MSI Wind is also quite capable of transcoding audio, and it will even do video, as long as you are patient.
I certainly don't feel limited by it at all. The main complaint about screens and keyboards being too small apply principally to the 7" 800x480 netbooks, and not to the 10" models.
Well, no idea what those guys are talking about... In the office I need powerful machines to do the job, basically architectonic drawings and renderings... Said that, when I'am home, I love to surf the net, check my gmail account, to lisent some music with iTunes, skype with my mates overseas and a long etc of things that take more than 1 hour... you don't need super computers to relax at home or in the bus stop... WTF are thos Intel guys thinking???
My MSI just rocks!!!
As a geek, who's lifestyle revolves around the heavy use of a computer and the internet altogether, I'd totally agree with the guy. I've seen the EEE PCs at Best Buy and as cool of an idea as they are, I found myself incredibly underwhelmed by them. The most I could see myself doing is checking e-mail on one of them and maybe a couple RSS feeds and then getting off it.
That being said, I think netbooks are perfect for A LOT of people who do a lot of traveling and have VERY BASIC computing needs. I'm not sure how big that market is because computer's seem to become more and more prevalent as the years go by. I think if your place of employment provided you with a desktop at work and you performed all your major work-related computing task at work and none at home and just wanted a netbook for that really basic stuff, then yea.... they are for you.
Interesting, I have been using an Asus eee pc, the 2G SURF model for the past 5 months. I have the Linux Flavor. I basically use it to surf the net, watch youtube vids, send email and IM.
My daughter recently poured Fruitpunch onto my Dell Notebook and the Motherboard in my desktop recently fried. Now I exclusively use the eee pc until the replacement Dell arrives in a week. I can do most of what I did on my Desktop and Notebook on this. What bites is the 512 RAM and the 800Mhz processor. I get slow down when multitasking or opening too many browser tabs. I don't game much, but I do maintain a website.
I am a Teacher and I can create lesson plans, run my Gradebook Pro software, Openoffice Presentation program, Audio books and attach it to a projector. It fits my basic needs. I do plan to buy something with a larger screen size, a wider keyboard, more memory and a faster processor. I may look into an Acer 9" or 10". I definitely use it more than 1 hour a day, try 7 hours each work day.
As a software developer, I need a fairly high-powered machine (Quad-core) for my work. However, as a consultant, I like to have my own machine for e-mail, web browsing, and some word processing / spreadsheets / checkbook stuff. My MSI Wind works perfectly for this. I can bring it to work without the power cord (I have the 6-cell battery), and hop on whatever free wireless is available. It's PERFECT>
I bought a Lenovo S10 when the LCD on my 15-incher died. I love it, and I definitely use it for more than an hour. A lot of my friends have switched over as well, and nobody seems to have any problems (except maybe the nearly nonexistent right shift key). I think netbooks are only going to keep growing. I know that I'll always have a desktop for high-performance computing or number crunching, but I'll probably never buy a full-size laptop again.
I was going to get a netbook, but then I saw a deal on a refurb IBM T42 for about $350 and hopped on that instead. Sure its bigger, but the battery life is longer than any 3-cell netbook equivalent and the full-size keyboard is simply more productive than its reduced netbook counterpart. Also the performance is better, mostly because of the discrete graphics in the IBM. I think a netbook would prove much more difficult to use on a daily basis than my T42, even though I still think they are really cool.
This ruins their business. I do emails and some surfing. I do not need a new computer every 3-5 years. This is future.
I don't know what that VP is talking about... I can use my Eee Pc for hours on end.
I also use my Acer Aspire 1 for more that an hour a day and for at least 8 hours on and off on the weekends. I have a iBook 14" that hasn't be touched for over a month.
I use the MSI wind as my main computer atm. It is great and powerful after tweaked, and better than any notebook i ever had that is for sure. I think they are the way and will dip into Notebooks Market Share. They are simple, more portable, just as powerful (for the most part). They need to start adding the Dual Core Atoms and adding x3100 at least. The screen size is fine, alot of people use 12.1s so its not alot of difference from the 10s, anything smaller i could see maybe these complaints semi-valid.
But i am all for Netbooks.
The Netbook approach strips down a laptop to lower the cost. A better approach is described at Khyber.com under Docking Display. It proposes developing a 'dumb' notebook peripheral into which an iPhone-like smartphone docks into? At an added cost of nearly $150, this approach will provide wireless voice, text, email, Internet, and multimedia in smartphone as well as notebook form-factor. The user will charge, store, and carry one integrated unit, and have to maintain only one wireless account, one set of applications, and only one set of personal files.
I honestly don't think I could deal with such a low-powered machine for more than 10 minutes. I use a MacBook on the go, and PowerMac G5 at home, and the MacBook drives me nuts because it is so underpowered and the screen is so small. Both get very aggravating since what I mostly do is creative stuff like Adobe and Final Cut. However, my grandparents are looking for a new computer whose if not only, at least primary function is AOL, and for her, I'd say a Dell Mini is most appropriate. Basically, anyone creative i can see having a difficult time using anything less than 15 inches.
I didn't use my Eee 701 as my primary notebook. The small 4gb internal flash and low-resolution screen made it great for instant messaging and web browsing, but not much more, so it didn't replace my Lenovo 3000 N100 by any means. I replaced the Eee 701 with an Aspire One. The resolution of 1024x600 means that web pages don't get distorted and the generous hard drive and better keyboard make word processing and other office-type tasks easier. It's become my primary notebook. It doesn't help that the battery in my Lenovo is now stone dead and I'm having a hard time replacing it, either. The first-gen Eees weren't meant to replace normal notebooks, but the nicer machines from the current crop of netbooks can if you have modest requirements.
From the point of view of someone that goes to a lot of conventions, netbooks are a Godsend.
My girlfriend has MSI Qind U100, and it works perfectly. It has 2 GB RAM and 160 GB HDD, runs smoothly, and is perfect for everyday use (Office, mail, web browsing, didital photos, iTunes). Great little machine
i've been a computer professional 30 years.. i've got more computers (desktops and laptops of various mac and pc brands) lying all around the house.. have to admit my 1000 is a great little book. easily a great companion machine for someone with a powerful desktop, or a primary box for someone with low-resource needs. i have 5 laptops collecting dust now because i don't feel like carrying their heavy asses with 1-2 hours of battery life. this little thing goes anywhere easily and lasts a good chunk of the day. anyone dismissing one without trying it first doesn't know what they are missing. hell, this thing is more powerful than what we had 10 years ago and we lived just fine, i'd have sold a body part for one 30 years ago!
hes right, its a compromise design for the time until bigger laptops get slightly better and cheaper. when the macbook becomes the macbook air as standard.
I went from a 17" 1920x1200 to a 1000h, and it hasn't bothered me at all. Great little laptop for music, video, browsing the web, etc.
I use a netbook (base mini 9, FWIW) as my primary home computer.
I do everythign except e-mail and IM on it, for that I use a BB Curve.
who needs a "real" computer for home use anyway? the only thing that I forsee being particularly challenging will be [turbotax] season.
I'm not an average or "light" user wither, I'm a long-time geek and IT professional.
I am very happy with my eee pc 1000H. It was never meant to be a replacement for my desktop. I am on the road quite a bit and this little machine is perfect. It handles everything I throw at it, be it office work, occasional design, video (even HD quality, heavy email use and some mid gaming. Sure, I don't believe it can replace my big rig, but again, it was never meant to. As a portable companion, it is leaps and bounds better than bigger machines for its portability value and whenever I need more real estate, I can plug it to my 22" monitor and it works like a charm.
asus n10 user here. best machine i ever had after all my amigas that is.
i play any mkv 1080p content on it with only around 30% cpu load. the series9 mobile gpu really helps. i have it with 2gb ddr2. i can run lightwave 9 and render fine (dont expect kickass speeed in renders of coz) but its fine in modeler wih subpatched objects and loads of polys. i can see everything on my fullhd samsung series6 via hdmi.
was cheap and well built. great machine, but since its not an apple and costs only half its not splashed around this site.
I don't even need a laptop, let alone a netbook...
Personally, with the i7 and the Deneb, I think we may be looking at a concorde moment of the PC industry. With the low power nettops starting to displace traditional desktop or laptops, I think most manufacturers would agree that the future of the PC industry doesn't lie in earl grey or caviar but burgers with shiny wrappings which can be sold for $2 each.
I've never needed anything for a laptop beyond simple word processing and internet, and I can get both from my Eee PC, my Mini-me. If I want to game, that's what my $2k desktop is for. I view netbooks as the laptop for someone with a real computer already. My mini-me has a stripped down version of WinXP and office, and it runs both fine. Would I just run with a netbook? Hells no, it has too small a hard drive, and too little processing power to really crunch the numbers. It's a great second car, but just not powerful enough to be my daily driver.