Netbooks: Expensive, Poor Battery Life. OK Around the House, Not on the Road says AMD. Prefers to Wait and See (video)
Story posted on: August 22, 2008
Earlier this week, I checked out AMD "client and server" briefing held at the W hotel, just a few steps away from the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. Unfortunately, this year, no air balloons, no limousines, no Intel "parking officer" or cops! How boring :-)
To cover the client side, AMD dispatched its "Advanced Marketing" guru, Pat Moorhead.
And on this first post covering AMD news at IDF, I've asked Moorhead his views on Netbooks/MIDs, those ultra-small form factor notebooks (as pictured from IDF's Tech Showcase) a-la EeePC or HP Mini-Note that started on the "cheap" side of the market. But as Moorhead pointed out, you can now find those low-featured netbooks (no hard disks, tiny keyboard/screen, low battery life...) at the price of a full-featured laptop! So is it really worth it? I think not.
"Every year there's something new, some shiny new thing that captures the attention of everybody. Sometimes it takes hold, sometimes it doesn't. If you remember last year, it was all about UMPCs. I don't about you but I haven't seen a ton of UMPCs out there in the marketplace, really selling in volume. This year, there's been a ton of discussions about netbooks. It's a potential market. AMD is taking a wait and see attitude on it", says Moorhead.
Here's Moorhead taking issue on netbook high cost versus a full size laptop:
"I actually have 4 netbooks that I use to understand the experience... So I went out and saw what I can buy for $499. And I can buy a netbook with a smaller size screen and without a hard drive or I can buy a 15.4" full size notebook, dual-core processor, 160 GB hard drive and Windows Vista. And as long as people understand the trade-offs things will be okay. But my guess is based on the fact that these netbooks are raising in price - if you remember that started off at $299 and you can actually find some models that are actually $599 - ... people are going to look and see what they can buy for $599".
Netbooks are good around the house but not on the road because of poor battery life:
"You would expect 8 or 9 hours out of a netbook because it's small - maybe you'll compare it to a cell phone. In fact, for some of the ones that I've tested, probably the hottest one has an 1h45 of battery life. You're not going to take that with you as a road warrior... Around the house it seems okay".
Unfortunately, AMD is not pushing Geode anymore. Geode is really an Atom-like chip and still is used in the One Laptop Per Child laptop and was released when Intel was still doing ARM processors!
"We still have design wins. We're still serving that customer set. But right now, at least at this show we are talking about the larger markets... full-size notebooks". Too bad really. Hope someone is working on reviving that chip and not let Intel alone in that market.
And finally the full video:
User Comments
#0, Alejandro Mercado , le 15/09/08 12:15 PM
First of all, i\'m interested in netbook because of his weight and size, right now i have a dell vostro and i think twice when need to travel because the awfull weight and size.
#1, missdipsy , le 16/09/08 5:55 AM
As I sit typing this on my Eee PC, I struggle to understand how this man got a job which relies on understanding consumers! Netbooks are a revolution in personal computing; they are truly portable, as opposed to full-sized laptops which are a pain to lug around with you unless you absolutely have to. I take my Eee everywhere with me as it\'s so small and lightweight I can just chuck it in my handbag or walk around whilst using it, and because it\'s got a SSD instead of a HDD there\'s less risk of it getting broken from being carried round all the time. And of course the relatively low price means that I don\'t worry as much about it as much as I might with a more expensive machine. My Eee PC 900 cost around £200; I wonder if Mr Moorhead could find me a brand new laptop for that price which isn\'t a pile of crap...
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Having a netbook has changed the way I think of computing; it\'s something to do with the sense of freedom in being completely unrestricted in where and when I use a computer. They fit perfectly into the gap between PDAs and PCs - PDAs are great but very limited in what you can actually do on them (web browsing, for example, is never very satisfactory on a PDA, nor is any serious document editing), whereas traditional PCs and laptops are not really very portable.
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The battery life isn\'t any worse than many laptops, and serious road warriors can always get a higher capacity battery and carry a spare. But of course netbooks (in their current incarnation, at least) are very new devices and the technology is improving all the time, with newer models having much better battery life. And besides, most of us don\'t have jobs & lives that entail being miles away from a plug socket all day when we need to use our netbooks. If I\'m out all day the chances are I\'ll only want to use my Eee for an hour or so at most during the day (because when I\'m away from "civilisation" the chances are I\'m doing something that doesn\'t require a computer!).
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He does kind of have a point about the netbooks at the more expensive end of the range; I think some manufacturers are losing sight of what makes netbooks unique: the price, form factor and simplicity. The expensive netbooks are more in the UMPC category. But I think he still misses the main point: that not everyone wants to carry a behemoth laptop around, they want a lightweight book-sized computer that they can take anywhere without getting arm ache!
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As a rough barometer of public appetite for netbooks, try demonstrating one to your friends. Over half the people I\'ve shown mine to are seriously considering buying one, and the rest were very interested!
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