AMD sees distinction between netbooks and laptops vanishing

Before you get all riled up, remember, this is just a man in a suit speaking his mind. Got it? Good. On AMD's most recent earnings call, CEO Dirk Meyer casually confessed that "the distinction between what is a netbook and what is a laptop is going to go away," and he continued by saying that there would be "a continuum of price points and form factors." Now, we're not about to believe that the whole netbook category will simply dry up and vanish in the near future -- much to the chagrin of Psion Teklogix, we assume -- but it's not like we haven't heard equally odd remarks from the CEOs of Intel and RIM. On second thought, shove a Core 2 Quad CPU, twin GPUs and 4GB of RAM into a Mini 10 chassis while nixing any and all heat issues, and you can call it whatever you damn well please.

[joelius24 Posted Jan 25th 2009 5:11PM]

"shove a Core 2 Quad CPU, twin GPUs and 4GB of RAM into a Mini 10 chassis while nixing any and all heat issues, and you can call it whatever you damn well please."

I don't disagree, but it's always fun to be able to read sentences like this 4 years from now ,isn't it? Like in married with children when their neighbor was hyping 4 mb of ram.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 25th 2009 6:37PM]

what is netbook? Small and cheap laptop.

[say592 Posted Jan 25th 2009 7:00PM]

The line is already disappearing.

When I bought my MSI Wind, I expected to use it when I was out of the house, maybe once or twice a day. However, it is powerful enough for most of my daily tasks, so I use that even more than I do my desktop. The only time I get on the desktop is when I really need it. I can even do light Photoshopping on the Wind, so I really only bother using my desktop for some video editing, or playing games.

As they get even more powerful, Im sure more and more people will be giving up their full featured laptops for tinier, more portable ones. Especially if they already have another computer to do what little work they cant do on their netbook.

[patches66 Posted Jan 25th 2009 7:16PM]

i call it, "@#$%... we're bleeding money here." the established players were complaining about the "race to the bottom" at least a year ago, and now we're in a depression. it's likely the real reason apple doesn't want to build netbooks: the margins are too low.

[HurricaneDC Posted Jan 25th 2009 11:49PM]

What are the two laptops in the article picture?

[breaklaw Posted Jan 26th 2009 9:43AM]

Ha! Someone from AMD would say that. The difference between a netbook and a laptop is the difference between an Atom and a Core 2.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 26th 2009 4:51PM]

u can get an msi wind and it will run mac. thats the best solution to apple not being in the netbook market ;)