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>>> didn't read the article, but was he suggesting it was the Macbook Air that killed the netbook? <<< I'm sorry if this is rude, but I downvoted you. I did th

>>> didn't read the article, but was he suggesting it was the Macbook Air that killed the netbook? <<< I'm sorry if this is rude, but I downvoted you. I did that because you didn't bother to read the article, but you bothered to comment. It's just isn't that simple. His argument for the MacBook Air is that it's in the same form factor, while having incredible battery life and being more powerful computationally. Plus, throw in OS X and you have a deal. In a way Air is netbook inspired in terms of the form factor, and the it killed the netbook by making the point that you could still pack in impressive features into a form factor that small by conventional standards, while having a decent profit margin. In the article, the author makes the point that what really killed the netbook was portable computing (in the form of smart phones and tablets) that packed the same punch and was more intuitive, while maintaining a good enough profit margin for hardware manufacturers to stampede in order to get into the segment. That said, I have a netbook, an Acer Aspire One, and it runs Ubuntu 10.10 with a grin and is quite awesome once you get used to the tiny keyboard... Besides, I really do think that no one is taking real advantage of modern computing and you can still write Ruby code on Pentium 2 era PC once you flash it and boil it down to the basics. I think that if someone is dedicated then even a dumb terminal is enough to write code, why do you need that new found computational power? This really is an honest question.

Goladus 15y ago
I downvoted your post because the second sentence attacks the poster rather than the post. It is impossible to you to know for sure whether someone read an article or not before posting. Such a guess never adds anything to a discussion. It is always possible to address flaws in a post without accusing the author of not reading something.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  He didn't guess. nextparadigms admitted that he didn't read the article.
- todayiamme 15y ago
  I'm sorry if it sounds like I was attacking him, but I actually didn't mean to. The author admitted that he hadn't read the post... P.S. - I'm a she not a he...
  - Goladus 15y ago
    Yeah my mistake there, sorry.
kijinbear 15y ago
I completely agree with the author's argument about smartphones and tablets, but I think @nextparadigms is right about the MacBook Air. It belongs in a completely different market segment, along with $2,000 "ultraportables" from Lenovo and Toshiba. That segment has been there for a long time even before netbooks appeared. It's definitely possible to pack a real Core 2 or i7 processor, an optical drive, and 10+ hours of battery life in a 11-13 inch form factor with a weight of no more than 3 pounds. It gets pretty damn expensive, though, even without the mandatory Apple mark-up. Personally, I would urge anyone who has a good enough budget to get a real ultraportable instead of a half-assed Atom netbook. But if somebody is shopping for a $350 netbook, I don't think they'd consider the MacBook Air a serious alternative. If anything, smartphones and tablets are stealing market share from both netbooks and ultraportables.
- todayiamme 15y ago
  I think that the author was talking about functionality... >>> If there was an appetite for easy-to-use, lightweight, entertainment and light computing devices, the netbook was supposed help fulfill that dream. Instead, it's been replaced in functionality by lower priced computers (a version of the MacBook Air became available for $995) having more capacity and better specs than the OLPC—while retaining light weight, high battery power conservation, and SSD devices without a plethora of jacks and an integral DVD drive—and the smartphone and pad/tablet genre. <<<
  - kijinbear 15y ago
    Being "replaced in functionality" by a superior product that costs at least 3 times as much doesn't make the inferior product "dead" any more than BMW makes Ford "dead". The author makes some good points, but the MacBook Air is a bad example.
    - todayiamme 15y ago
      Ah yes, you're right. Thank you for correcting me.

Goladus 15y ago

I downvoted your post because the second sentence attacks the poster rather than the post. It is impossible to you to know for sure whether someone read an article or not before posting. Such a guess never adds anything to a discussion. It is always possible to address flaws in a post without accusing the author of not reading something.

bryanlarsen 15y ago
He didn't guess. nextparadigms admitted that he didn't read the article.
todayiamme 15y ago
I'm sorry if it sounds like I was attacking him, but I actually didn't mean to. The author admitted that he hadn't read the post... P.S. - I'm a she not a he...
- Goladus 15y ago
  Yeah my mistake there, sorry.

kijinbear 15y ago

I completely agree with the author's argument about smartphones and tablets, but I think @nextparadigms is right about the MacBook Air. It belongs in a completely different market segment, along with $2,000 "ultraportables" from Lenovo and Toshiba. That segment has been there for a long time even before netbooks appeared. It's definitely possible to pack a real Core 2 or i7 processor, an optical drive, and 10+ hours of battery life in a 11-13 inch form factor with a weight of no more than 3 pounds. It gets pretty damn expensive, though, even without the mandatory Apple mark-up. Personally, I would urge anyone who has a good enough budget to get a real ultraportable instead of a half-assed Atom netbook. But if somebody is shopping for a $350 netbook, I don't think they'd consider the MacBook Air a serious alternative. If anything, smartphones and tablets are stealing market share from both netbooks and ultraportables.

todayiamme 15y ago
I think that the author was talking about functionality... >>> If there was an appetite for easy-to-use, lightweight, entertainment and light computing devices, the netbook was supposed help fulfill that dream. Instead, it's been replaced in functionality by lower priced computers (a version of the MacBook Air became available for $995) having more capacity and better specs than the OLPC—while retaining light weight, high battery power conservation, and SSD devices without a plethora of jacks and an integral DVD drive—and the smartphone and pad/tablet genre. <<<
- kijinbear 15y ago
  Being "replaced in functionality" by a superior product that costs at least 3 times as much doesn't make the inferior product "dead" any more than BMW makes Ford "dead". The author makes some good points, but the MacBook Air is a bad example.
  - todayiamme 15y ago
    Ah yes, you're right. Thank you for correcting me.