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Netbook Buying Guide
The Future of Computing:
It could be reasonably argued that netbooks are the future of computing. Smaller, faster, lighter, and cheaper have always been trends in the industry and any product that manages to sucessfully combine several of these attributes has always been a winner when properly marketed. The netbook combines all of these attributes. . . or does it? There no argument that netbooks are certainly smaller and lighter forms of computing than desktops or current laptops but what about cheaper and faster? As for the faster aspect, we can all rest easy knowing that dual core Atom's are already being played with and most certainly will find their way into netbooks within a year's timeframe. Cheaper however is an issue not so easily tackled. Netbooks range in price quite a bit with the Acer Aspire One coming in at a bargain price of $329 or less in most retail outlets while the S101 and N10 come in top heavy at $699 to $899 depending on configuration. If you consider that you can step out to your local retail outlet such as Best Buy and pickup a laptop today priced at ~$500 with a larger screen and more powerful CPU Netbooks lose a bit of their appeal. Most laptops don't come close to the Acer Aspire One in terms of price but most standard laptops will also out perform the Acer Aspire One by far.
Consumers can expect two major changes to occur in 2009, first Intel will likley announce Dual Core Atom's to be used in netbooks, additionally Via will announce the Nano also to be used in netbooks. Initially prices for netbooks based on the new processors will be higher than current netbooks and after a few months you can expect prices to drop to what you see now. We will keep this buyers guide updated so that you have the latest information on which to base your buying upon.