Phil Speak: The Netbook: Off to Greener Pastures?

Hello my fellow geeksters! Phil is back and with a vengeance! Forgive my long disappearance as I’ve been uber busy with a truckload of projects. Argh! It’s hard to keep up!

Nevertheless, I am here and ready to present you with some food for thought.

We all know the netbook has been around for some time. Some of us have bought them, others haven’t. With the onset of the iPad and all the other tablets that followed, so many of us are picking them up faster than the companies can say “ker-ching!” That puts these little guys in a bit of a pickle, as I shall now explain.

You see, netbooks are still full-fledged computers. Sure, they are smaller, cheaper and slower, but they can run (almost!) everything a normal laptop can run. Need to browse the Net? Send Emails? Create Word documents, spreadsheets, etc? No problem! They’re also great for when you’re on the go and you need more functionality and less space.

However, these guys have been falling behind since the onslaught of the tablet. They’re not new, as the first tablets came out in the early 90s (so last century!) but they were horrible (and ran Windows *shudder*). Apple turned that around in 2010, and now for every Android tablet sold, they sell 25 iPads. Not bad eh?

These things pretty much run everything a netbook does & more. And with the recent release of the Kindle Fire for $199, you have something a lot cheaper than the iPad that has a browser and Amazon’s AMAZING book selections & more.

So really, are netbooks dead? Do they still have a fighting chance in a market with so much competition? I’ll let you decide and feel free to post comments below.

Tata for now my friends! Keep it crazy, keep it geek! 🙂