Follow us on TwitterAcer’s Bombshell Shakes Up the Netbook Market
Posted by Tom Greer on August 25, 2008 in Acer Netbooks, Asus Netbooks, Dell Netbooks, HP Netbooks, Lenovo Netbooks, MSI Netbooks, Netbook Market
Acer recently slashed the prices on their Aspire One netbooks by $50, which is huge. As a result, the entire netbook (and ultimately, the notebook) market will be impacted.
I was wondering when Moore’s Law would finally be applied to netbooks. Asus seemed to defy Moore’s Law by incrementally increasing the price with every new model they introduced.
Suddenly, paying $300 for an Eee PC 2G Surf does not make sense any more. Why would you when you can get the Aspire One for $329? The Aspire One has a bigger screen (8.9″ vs. 7″), bigger keyboard, the new Intel Atom processor, a larger drive (8 GB vs. 2 GB) and a case that is way more professional.
In fact, it no longer makes sense to pay almost $600 for an Eee PC 901. In fact, I prefer the Aspire One over the Eee PC 901, primarily due to its larger keyboard.
The MSI Wind 100 has a similar feature set with a larger screen. But it’s now priced about $200 more.
What this means is that everyone else will now need to respond.
Of course, this may or may not impact Dell. I was expecting that Dell would be the one who would drop this bomb on the rest of the players. I’m sure their new netbook will be priced appropriately.
Lenovo has already been complaining to the media about the low margins in netbooks. It will be ineteresting to see whether these lower price points have an impact on their planned introduction of the IdeaPad S9 and S10 which was forecasted for October.
HP’s Mini-Note was already rather high-priced, especially given the woefully slow VIA processor. They’ve been rumored to have something new in development. I believe we will see that shortly.
Now that Acer has taken the initiative, the reverberations are just beginning. We now get to see how things will shake out.
Arrgh! Give Me Full-Size Shift Keys!
Posted by Tom Greer on August 21, 2008 in Acer Netbooks, Asus Netbooks, Dell Netbooks, Lenovo Netbooks, MSI Netbooks, Netbook Market
Whenever I try to do any serious touch typing with my Eee PC 4G Surf, I get frustrated. Of course the keyboard is small, I can adjust to that. I just can’t adapt to the half-sized right shift key.
The problem is created when the netbook manufacturers cut the right shift key in half to make room for the up-arrow (as you can see in the picture below).
Everytime that I’m zipping along, thinking that I’m making time, I look up to find that my work of art has become all higgledy-piggledy. Somewhere along the way, I up-arrowed when I thought I was shifting. I have to undo-undo-undo, until I (once again) have a legible document. Then, I have to try to remember all those wonderfully intelligent thoughts that I had captured earlier.
It’s not just the Eee PC 4G Surf’s that have this style keyboard. Many netbooks do.
For these netbooks, just about every review complains about this arrangement. I thought that the netbook makers would listen. Apparently, not yet.
All of the Asus Eee PCs are this way, even the 10″ Eee PC 1000 series. The new Lenovo IdeaPad S9 and S10 models have half-sized right shift keys, too. And if the leaked Dell mini pictures are accurate, then Dell blew it as well.
At least Acer and MSI did not simply mimic Asus. They apparently were listening. Both the Aspire One and the Wind sport full-sized shift keys.
A full-sized right shift key is an absolute must for my next netbook. I didn’t have many choices when I bought my first one. But I sure do now.
I believe that I’m not alone. Netbook makers, are you listening???
Lenovo Announces Netbooks
Posted by Tom Greer on August 7, 2008 in Lenovo Netbooks, Netbook Market
Lenovo recently announced their first netbook offerings named IdeaPad S9 and S10. Both are similar, sharing the same case and many components. Both will be configured with Linux or Windows.
The big difference: the S9 will have an 8.9″ display and the S10 will have 10.2″ display.
The other big difference is that the S9 will not be sold in the USA. Also, for those of us in the USA, the S10 will only be available with Windows.
Lenovo issued completely different press releases in the UK and the USA.