Chris Mellor of The Register tells me that I'm likely to have purchased a netbook:
If you have a desktop or notebook computer and are aged between 25 and 55, there's nearly a one in five chance you have already bought a netbook.
Price comparison firm PriceGrabber says we Tween-25-and-55'ers see the netbook as the third leg supporting our desktop and notebook computers "because the three systems complement each other and are used for different things." Darn right!
The firm lists reasons why people aren't buying netbooks:
- Limited battery life -- my netbook gets 7 hours.
- Limited processing power -- mine runs the latest version of AutoCAD, though 3D graphics are laggardly.
- Limited memory -- the 1GB RAM is bolstered by the 4GB of ReadyBoost storage.
- Limited storage capacity -- my netbook's 160GB hard drive is 2x larger than the drive on my desktop (well, the desktop has 1.5TB of external drives, but the netbook could also access them).
Mr Mellor figures that this the trend that is happening: Notebooks are the new desktops, while netbooks are the new notebooks. Netbook sales jumped from 1% (of mobile users) last July to 19% in December.
No surprise. As I waited several hours yesterday for my daughter to complete her orientation at the Four Continents Figure Skating Competition, I was sitting in the stands, busy doing last minute checks on my newly completed The Illustrated AutoCAD Quick Reference book on my LG X110 netbook. A 25-to-55-year-old figure skating mom sitting nearby admired its compact size. The backlight on her notebook computer's screen had stopped working, and she was wondering what to do next. When she heard of the $400-price typical of netbooks, she decided that it that was cheaper than getting the backlighting fixed.
As The Register article notes, people are switching to netbooks as their laptops wear out.
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