Netbooks overpriced
When netbooks were originally released they were positioned as cheap PCs for mobile users who needed access to email and Internet when on the road. But what started as a good idea appears to have been swamped by feature creep and rising prices. So much so that in many cases now there are very few compelling reasons to buy a netbook over a normal laptop.
For example, the Acer Aspire One and the recently released Toshiba NB100 netbooks both sell for around R5 000 or more. The entry-level Aspire One can be bought for around R4 500 to R5 500 with a little bit of shopping around but the latest version with built-in HSDPA comes in at a wallet-damaging R6 999 at one of the popular hardware retailers. The NB100 costs around R5 100 through most online retailers.
Which is simply too much and completely misses the point of netbooks. Netbooks in general are too small to be primary work machines, so presumably most netbook owners already have a desktop or laptop PC for day-to-day work and just need a netbook to flip open when they’re away from the office. But at R5 000-plus for a netbook that’s a hefty investment for a second PC.
There is also the case that an entry-level laptop in most cases costs the same or even less than an entry-level netbook. Which removes much of the value a netbook offers apart from it being smaller and more portable than an entry-level laptop. And in most cases the entry-level laptop will have a lot more features, including a much-needed larger screen and keyboard.
Sadly even Asus, which kicked off the netbook movement with its EEE PC, is starting to go down the same path. Although it is possible to pick up a Asus EEE 700W model for around R2 500, most of the latest EEE PC’s from the company are pushing the R3 500 boundary or beyond, which is starting to get pricey.
The thing is that netbooks are meant to do just a couple of things: check email and give users a mobile window on the Internet. The fact that they can be multimedia players and the like is nice but ultimately superfluous. And building in a ton of additional features just makes netbooks expensive and unappealing.
Anything priced over R2 500 becomes harder to justify, especially as the machine ships with a smaller keyboard, smaller screen and, very often, smaller storage space.
Instead of targeting the high-end of the market, Netbook makers need to get back to the basics, to the things that first grabbed people’s attention. Netbooks need to be small, ultra-light and, most importantly, very affordable. If they aren’t users will simply buy a standard laptop.
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