Mini laptops mount a mobile challenge
Netbooks are a lot smaller and thinner than laptops, with eight to 10-inch screens and battery life of up to five hours. They are lighter and easier to carry around and are ideal for checking e-mail, surfing the web, accessing information and handling basic computing tasks while on the move.
“About 90% of netbooks are used as a secondary device to a PC or laptop,” says Danie Steyn, sub Saharan regional business manager at Intel.
He says netbooks are not ideal for multitasking, fancy PowerPoint presentations or applications that require a lot of processing power. Typically, they provide a third of the processing power of traditional Centrino laptops, are slower than the entry-level Celeron laptop models and do not come with extras like a CD-ROM drive.
Some have traditional hard drives, while others have flash memory drives that operate like a built-in memory stick, but with a capacity of up to 16 gigabytes. They can be connected to standard PC peripherals like a keyboard and mouse with a USB cable, but most do not have ports for connecting to an external screen.
“It is important for users to know these limitations because we do not want them buying a netbook thinking it is just a small laptop and then finding it does not meet their needs,” says Steyn.
He says the next generation of netbooks will be based on Intel’s Pine-Trail-M technology platform, which will incorporate an Ericsson 3G mobile broadband communication capability that will enable users to connect to the internet without an additional external 3G adaptor.
Sanjay Kaul, vice-president of multimedia solutions and systems integration for Ericsson sub Saharan Africa, says the company’s target is to have 300-million netbooks globally with its broadband capability by 2014.
He says at least 30% of these devices will be sold through operators and bundled with connectivity packages.
“The trend is moving this way worldwide,” says Kaul.
Another category of mobile user devices known as smartbooks is being developed by mobile chip manufacturers that fills the gap between smartphones and laptops.
Smartbooks are a similar shape, but are even smaller than netbooks, cost less, consume even less power, have embedded 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities, 3D graphics and high-resolution screens up to 12 inches, but have no hard drives. Like smartphones, their always-on 3G capabilities enable them to be connected permanently to the mobile network, and they offer the same all-day battery life.
However, they have larger screens, offer a far better internet browsing experience and support video conferencing, instant messaging, video streaming and downloads, game playing and social networking.
These devices are expected to support operating systems like Linux, Symbian, Google’s Android, and perhaps even Windows.
Cellphone chip-maker Qualcomm says 15 manufacturers are developing smartbook devices based on its Snapdragon chipset, also used in smartphones, and it expects 30 products to emerge by the end of this year.
Freescale’s website displays a smartbook that unfolds to provide a separate screen, keyboard and mouse, and another from which a keyboard slides out of the side of the unit. Then there is one with a vertical display, one with a touch screen interface, one featuring a leather-based casing, and a modular unit for customisation.
Netbook and laptop discussion
Business Day
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