A netbook is a laptop. It’s just smaller, cheaper, and typically less powerful than most other laptops on the market. But those three things are enough to set netbooks apart from other notebooks in the minds of most consumers, and according to a survey from PriceGrabber.com, 55% of consumers think netbooks complements traditional laptops rather than replacing them.

It’s not particularly surprising that most people would rather use a full time laptop for some or many tasks than one that was designed to be low cost and ultraportable. What’s a bit more surprising to me is the implication that 45% of consumers do think that netbooks are replacements for traditional laptops — indicating that many people just don’t need a big screen or a powerful processor to meet most of their computing needs.

The PriceGrabber study defined netbooks as machines with screens smaller than 11 inches and price tags lower than $500, which seems about right to me.

The survey also points out something that’s been pretty clear for the last year or two: The increasing demand for cheap netbooks has led to a drop in the overall prices for computers. PriceGrabber.com reports that the average cost of a laptop in its directory dropped from $808 in December 2008 to $645 in December, 2009.

The complete study has all sorts of other interesting tidbits, including the odd fact that the largest age group of netbook owners seems to have shifted from 35-54 to 45-64 over the past few months, and that solid state disks aren’t really taking off.

Last year a bunch of research firms put out studies showing that netbook shipments in 2008 were up over 2007 shipments by astronomical figures. That’s hardly surprising since the Eee PC 701 was pretty much the only netbook on the market in 2007, and it didn’t hit the streets until November of that year. But while 2008 was a big year for mini-laptops, it looks like 2009 was an even bigger year. Strategy Analytics says that netbook shipments grew by 79% in 2009.

That comes to 30.2 million netbooks shiped globally in 2009. The researchers says Acer, Asus, HP, and Dell led the pack, although as we also know Toshiba, Samsung, MSI, and others have put out fairly well received netbooks.

Strategy Analytics predicts 2010 will be another strong year for netbooks. But the traditional concept of a mini-laptop with a low power processor, 10 inch or smaller screen, and nearly full sized keyboard may be under attack. We’re going to see a number of companies launch tablet-style devices that could eat away at the netbook market this year. And a growing number of PC makers are putting out 11 and 12 inch notebooks with more powerful graphics and processing capabilities than netbooks, but which generally offer decent battery life at an affordable price.

I’m sure Strategy Analytics probably has some information I’m not privy to which leads to their conclusion that netbooks will be able to fend off those challenges. But I don’t feel like spending $7,000 on their full report to find out.

via Eee PC.net

In late 2007, netbooks were kind of a fad. By 2008, they were the fastest growing segment of the PC industry. More than 2 years after the launch of the Eee PC 701, where are we today? According to DisplaySearch, netbook shipments are still growing. The research firm’s most recent report shows that netbook shipments are up 103% from last year.

Over the same period, DisplaySearch says revenues from mini-notebooks are up 73%. Is this kind of growth sustainable? That remains to be seen, but the company projects that even more netbooks will be sold in 2010 than in 2009, although DisplaySearch projects a smaller year-to-year growth number of about 19%.

At the same time, DisplaySearch points out that overall revenues from notebook sales are down about 7%. While it’s tempting to say that low cost netbooks are to blame, there’s no way to know if people would have actually bought even fewer notebooks in 2009 had there not been low cost options like netbooks available.

There’ve been a lot of reports indicating that the demand for netbooks might be cooling off. But you knwo what? DisplaySearch reports that 22.2% of all notebooks shipped during the second quarter of 2009 were netbooks. Mini-laptops also saw a quarter to quarter 40% increase in shipments , compared with 22% growth in the traditional laptop space.

Part of the growth has been spurred by telecoms in Europe and other areas that offer cheap or free netbooks to customers who sign up for long terms service contracts. Netbooks represent a larger share of the pie in Europe and North America than in developing nations. But in some areas including Latin America and Greater China, netbook penetration is actually higher than notebook penetration.

It’s not entirely clear from the press release whether DisplaySearch is counting newer 11.6 inch and 12.1 inch laptops as “netbooks,” but I don’t think it matters too much since these larger computers were still pretty rare during most of Q2 2009.

via TechCrunch

DisplaySearch

In our latest episode of “as the netbook sells,” DisplaySearch expects nearly 33 million netbooks to ship in 2009, while shipments of larger notebooks is expected to remain steady. In fact, the analysts suggest that part of the reason for flat shipments in traditional laptops is because netbooks are selling so well.

While most PC makers are trying to position netbooks as secondary machines that one would purchase in addition to a typical notebook rather than instead of, they’re cheap and attractive machines that some people may be buying as primary computers. At the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if some people who do plan to use both a traditional laptop and a netbook might be picking up netbooks now and putting off more expensive laptop purchases until later.

DisplaySearch points out that another reason for sluggish laptop sales could be the decline in enterprise demand as companies are looking for places to cut costs in response to the economic downturn.

via CNET

I always get a kick out of reports that predict what will be happening 4 years from now in an industry segment that didn’t even exist 2 years ago. So I’m taking Semico’s recent prediction that 22% of the mobile PC market will belong to netbooks in 2013 with a grain of salt.

According to the report, 59 million netbooks will ship that year. Semico is including ARM based systems in that figure as well as x86 based machines. Of course, Qualcomm would prefer to think of ARM-powered mini-laptops as smartbooks, and it remains to be seen whether there’s really a market for 3G enabled smartbooks running Linux, Google Android, or Windows CE. And when it comes to x86 based netbooks, we’re seeing mini-laptops getting more powerful and larger all the time. It’s certainly possible that more than 1 in 5 laptops sold in 2013 will be low power cheap, and ultraportable. But will they still be called netbooks? I’m thinking it’s too early to tell.

via Netbook Choice

I know, I know. Technically, netbooks are just little notebooks. But the truth of the matter is that there are a number of things that most full sized notebooks can do that are tougher to do on a netbook. For one thing, most full sized laptops have optical disc drives for installing software, listening to CDs, or watching or burning DVDs. Netbooks also typically have slower processors and lower resolution displays than most laptops which makes them less than ideal for watching 1080p video, playing some games, or performing other CPU-intensive activities.

On the other hand, netbooks are good enough for 90% of the tasks that most people perform on a day to day basis. They can handle web browsing, office document editing, and other duties with ease. Heck, you can edit video on them if you really want to. It’ll just take a lot longer than on a system with a Core 2 Duo CPU.

But I’m probably preaching to the choir here. Most of you already know these things. But according to an NPD study, it appears the general public might not have gotten the message yet. NPD reports that “60 percent of consumers who purchased a netbook instead of a notebook though their netbooks would have the same functionality as notebooks.” Among those who chose a netbook instead of a notebook, only 58% said they were “very satisfied,” while 70% of those who had planned to get a netbook all along were satisfied with the purchase.

Shocking, no? It turns out that there’s a better chance you’ll be happy with your purchase if you know what you’re looking for before forking over the money. Who knew?

Anyway, there’s one statistic in the study that’s even stranger. While the main appeal of netbooks is their light weight, small size, and general portability, 60% of netbook buyers report that they never take the little laptops out of the house. I suppose it could just be aspirational thinking: You buy a netbook because you think you’ll carry it with you everywhere you go, only to realize you never go anywhere that you need a computer. But maybe the idea of a cheap, light weight computer for use around the house just appeals to people who don’t really ever expect to become road warriors.

What do you think? Do you regularly use your netbook around the house, on the go, or both?

via Laptop Magazine

Netbooks have a few things going for them. They’re smaller, lighter, and cheaper than most laptops. But they also tend to emphasize internet connectivity with built in WiFi capabilities. But while plenty of folks have installed 802.11b, g, or n networks in their homes, ultraportable devices really shine when you take them out of the house. Becuase let’s face it, it’s not that hard to move your 7 pound laptop from the living room to the bedroom. But you don’t really want to lug it to the coffee shop. So it’s shouldn’t be that surprising that new research sells netbooks are selling best in big cities, because those are the areas that tend to have a greater concentration of WiFi hotspots.

A study from NPD finds that netbooks are hot in New York, San Francisco, Miami, San Diego, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Boston. Those markets are typically seen as areas where tech does well, but I’m going to venture a guess that the presence of WiFi has a lot to do with the success of netbook as well. Nationwide, about 9.8% of notebooks sold in the US are netbooks. But in New York, for example, that figure is 12.3%. I lived in New York for a year and I could usually find a coffee shop, library, or other unsecured public WiFi hotspot in almost any part of Manhattan.

Perhaps we’ll see netbooks make bigger gains in other parts of the country the coming years as wireless companies including AT&T and Verizon begin offering mini-laptops bundled with 3G modems for wireless broadband access using the cellphone network.

NPD says notebook sales grew by 15.7% between October and April. That figure would have been just 3.6% if you took netbooks out of the equation.

via eWeek

Research firm Gartner has put out a report claiming that this will be the “year of the mini-notebook” in the Asia Pacific region, with netbook shipments expected to grow by 82 percent from last year. You’ll have to pony up $1295 to read the full report, but the Cliff Notes version is available in the press release.

In a nutshell, Gartner expects netbooks to represent 14 percent of all mobile PCs shipped in the region by 2011. The Asia Pacific region includes Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Gartner says netbook sales could grow by more than 40% this year in Australia alone.

Of course, there’s nothing particularly shocking about these numbers. For the first half of 2008 there were only a handful of mini-notebooks available. Today there are dozens, if not hundreds of models available throughout the world. So it’s hardly surprising to expect that more netbooks will ship in 2009 than shipped in the second half of 2008 (plus the relatively small number of netbooks shipped by Asus, HP, Everex, and a handful of other companies that were selling netbooks in early 2008).

via Eee PC.net

Research firm IDC says that 30% of “consumer portable” computer sold in the EMEA region in the fourth quarter of 2008 were mini-laptops. EMEA covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Overall, 3.6 million netbooks were sold in the region, accounting for 20% of overall notebook sales and an even higher percentage of consumer oriented devices.

4 out of 5 of those netbooks were sold in western Europe, where sales have been helped along by mobile carriers offering subsidized netbooks to customers who sign up for long term wireless broadband plans.

Acer and Asus are selling more netbooks in the region than all the other laptop makers combined. Acer has just over 30% of the market, while Asus has a 28% market share. THe next closest competitor is HP, which shipped 253,000 units to obtain 7% of the market share.