overall sales have suffered setbacks recently, high-end smart phones and low-end computers of netbooks are still two of the best electronic devices on the market. Could it be that the gap between them someday be occupied by a device that combines the best of each?
Somehow, the two products are already beginning to merge. The cost is more similar, with the most expensive smartphones now more expensive than the cheapest netbooks (around $ 300). Wireless operators are beginning to add netbook plans, plunging the cost of a notebook with a service plan for as low as $ 50, similar to the phones off if users subscribe to a contract. Manufacturers are starting to make chips for smart phones and operating systems, including Google’s Android in netbooks. Meanwhile, manufacturers of netbooks such as Asustek plans to make smartphones.
Both products are trying to meet the same need to “take something small, portable and low cost with you that is always connected” to the Internet, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group in San Jose, California
But a large difference in size remains. Netbooks fit in a duffel bag or backpack, but not in a pocket. That is leading to speculation that a company like Apple could interfere with a mid-size “tablet” or device “in the iPod” as soon as next month. (Hence the need for large pants pocket.)
Smart phones – like the BlackBerry, which is aimed at business users, and Apple’s iPhone, which is designed for consumers – offering many but not all the features of a computer in a handheld device. Users can surf the Web, reading email, and a number of other things depending on the applications that load. And, yes, the phone calls.
Netbooks – to 7 – to 10-inch screens – processing power sport relatively insignificant, but push enough to handle most things people want to do on a laptop, such as checking email and surfing the Web .
While many people would cringe to write a long document with tiny smartphone keys or a touch screen, netbooks have complete, although sometimes crowded, keyboards. That does not mean that smartphones can not write to win a short sprint. CNET UK gadget blog filmed a writing competition between iPhone and netbook typist with volunteers who were in a race car going 80 mph around a track. The iPhone, with its predictive writing feature cleaning up some of the dining rooms, bored “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” with much more precision.
Apple makes the popular iPhone, iPod pocket and devices and computers, but it is clear the market for netbooks. In late April, acting head of Apple, Tim Cook, netbooks criticized as simply not up to Apple’s quality standards. “When I look at what sells in the netbook space today, I see keyboards tight, terrible software, hardware uneven, very small screens, and not just a consumer good experience and not something that would put the Mac brand,” Mr . Cook said. “It’s a stretch to call a personal computer.”
