Thursday, December 25, 2008

Laptops overtake desktops in overall sales


I'm interested to see that laptop computers outsold desktop units for the first time last quarter, according to market research. This was apparently due to the new wave of 'netbook computers', much smaller, lighter and cheaper than full-featured laptop computers, but quite adequate to surf the Web, check e-mail, and so on.




I've seen these new small laptops, but I've never used one. I have a HP Pavilion full-feature laptop, plus my desktop, and tend to use the latter for all work at home, reserving the laptop for travel.

How about you, readers? Are any of you using the new 'Netbook' small laptops? If so, how have you found them? Do they do everything you need, or are they lacking in any key features? I'd love to hear your feedback in Comments, please.

Peter

5 comments:

Justin Buist said...

I love the smaller notebooks. I bought an iBook about 4 years ago for work and the wife still uses it for her evening surfing in the living room. I got myself a Macbook about 2 years ago when the iBook took a dump during a software update and still use it to this day.

They're easy to tote around when traveling and light enough that you don't feel weird with it on your lap, which is what I'm doing right now.

Simon said...

I am one of the horde of netbook buyers. I have all three sorts of computers, a Desktop for gaming purposes as well as for working comfortably while at home, though for ergonomics i could just as well use my laptop with an external keyboard and an external monitor.
While traveling (which i almost always do by car) i usually bring my laptopcomputer, As that one is more comfortable working and websurfing on than the netbook, which i am currently using. I bought my Acer Aspire one a110 in november to use while driving my taxi as there is loads and loads of waiting time which i use for websurfing and watching movies. As a friend borrowed my laptop and "cellphone modem" over christmas i am right now sitting in the couch at my sisters place and typing away at this quite adequate little tool, weighing in at just under one kilogram it is a wonderful little tool that i dont notice the weight of in my Everyday Carry Backpack, at 2700 Swedish Kronor it is cheap enough to be affordable to replace if i should happen to kill it.

Gerald said...

My friend bought one and I tried it out. Let's just say the keyboard was not designed for someone with arthritic fingers. My Compaq Presario V3000 keyboard is only slightly better though.

SordidPanda said...

I looked at the Asus Eee pc netbook and for the price it didn't have the features of a full featured laptop.

I ended up getting an Acer 5520-5912 because the price was very competitive with the no frills netbooks.

Now that the price of the Eee has dropped a hundred bucks US for the christmas season I was tempted to get one, but I'm holding off until there is more internal flash memory. Nothing worse than buying a new computer and immediately begin to upgrade.

Rachel Leigh Smith said...

My dad got one for Christmas and he is in love with it! The thing weighs not quite 3 pounds with the battery in.

I'm happy with my Dell Inspiron 1200. Just need to get a new battery for it.