Laptop prices falling hard
Today’s MacBook price cuts were both welcome and not unique in the current laptop market. Ultraportables and desktop replacements alike have been suffering from netbooks and Intel CULV powered thin ‘n lights pulling down the whole sector.
It’s pretty cool that you can finally get a decently powered 3-4lb laptop with a 13 inch screen for well under $1,000; MSI’s X340 and Acer’s Timeline are good examples. Both are HD video capable and provide enough power for day-to-day computing.
These machines pull down the premium end of the ultraportable market like the Dell Adamo and MacBook Air, which don’t really offer much more hardware than the MSI or Acer. In fact the Dell is probably slower than both. So now we have a $1,499-$1,799 MacBook Air, which is great news for consumers and effectively sets a glass ceiling for ultraportable prices.
At the heavier end of the market 17 inch laptops are under strain from all-in-ones like the Asus EEE Top which are semi-mobile and keenly priced. I found a new Toshiba dual-core T3400 17 inch laptop on Amazon this evening for $529. This thing was fully loaded, you really wouldn’t need much more for a day-to-day desktop replacement…and of course you can install Windows 7 RC and get almost a year of usage before you need to buy a license.
Neil Berman
theONbutton@CES – EEE Top is a recession buster for wanna-be-cool homes
Whilst some of the initial excitement of the EEE netbook range has started to wear off, the EEE Top is way cooler than I thought it would be.
For a start the device looks great in real life. The touch sensitivity is great and the stunning keyboard has a storage home behind the screen. In fact the entire product looks and feels like an Apple product.
The EEE Top has the Intel Atom guts of many a netbook, which means it’s a low energy user and it delivered responsive touch sensitive performance through Windows XP. An instant-on facility allows access to Firefox and Skype amongst other applications. This would be an extremely cool device to have dotted around the home.
Keep ‘em coming Asus, and next time give us a sweet graphics card inside for 1080 HD.
Neil Berman
Are Windows 7 pre-Beta success stories responsible for Atom notebook rumors?
Today’s rumors that HP is discussing the possibility of using Atom CPUs for notebooks as well as existing netbooks is interesting for two reasons. Firstly we have not seen the Atom in any laptops with >12″ screens, but secondly and more importantly I think this could be an indicator of confidence in early Windows 7 tests.
We have already seen Windows 7 running on an Asus EEE PC, and early impressions of the next-gen OS have been extremely positive for a stage so early in the pre-release phase.
So what does it mean if HP really is talking to Intel about supplying the Atom for notebooks?
- Performance for netbook -style tasks should be fine on Windows 7, given initial performance tests against Vista and XP, which means browsing, non-HD video viewing, basic office/productivity tasks are all in scope.
- Battery life should skyrocket, if the netbook crowd can be used as a benchmark. My Wind gets over five hours in real-life usage and the only significant additional power drain on a notebook is a larger screen…but they also offer more real-estate for housing a larger battery. Could full working-day battery operation from a large-screen laptop become a mainstream reality?
- The concept is good news for organizations with a mobile/flexible-working workforce and a thin-client infrastructure.
- Many consumers may only need low processing power as we move towards a web-based services computing model (eg. web-mail/photo/music/productivity apps). They might trade notebook HD movie editing capabilities for longer battery life in real life usage…however this would require a sea change in marketing tecniques where high power specs aim to sell a life-changing experience. It is probably a ‘Greener’ sell though, which could lead to Atom-based notebooks being more fashionable that more energy-hungry models.
Time will tell if anything comes of this, but when I put together the early Windows 7 success stories with rumors of HP talking to Intel about the Atom then it does all start to come together…in my hopeful mind!
Neil Berman
iMac Sales Plunge, Apple Slashes Refurb Macbook Air to $1,149
It’s been a week that Apple fans will want to forget. NPD reported that Apple sales for November were flat year on year whilst Windows PCs gained 7%, iMac sales collapsed by 38% whilst Windows desktops fell only 15% and Apple announced that the company will stop attending Macworld after the 2009 show. Apple laptop sales rose 22% compared to 15% for Windows laptops.
What does this mean for Apple? Most likely something needs to be done…and pretty fast. Apple has responded by slashing prices of its refurbished models, a move likely aimed at removing the carrying costs of old inventory. Macbook Airs are available for $1,149 on Apple’s US website at the time of writing. Deep reductions are offered across other lines as well and online stores are offering serious discounts on new models. After a while this discounting could erode the premium perception of the brand and hurt Apple retail store sales, which are typically made at full price.
Netbooks captured the the public's imagination in 2008
This may be a short term band-aid to improve working capital, but Apple needs to look deeper at its product line and offer models at prices which relate to the current economy. The company has been too late in coming to the Netbook market, which exploded with colossal growth this year following the arrival of the Asus EEE in late 2007. Apple needs a Netbook quickly, and it will need to compete with the quality of the MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One and Asus EEE range, which all sell for around $300-400.
Steve Jobs said that “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” Well Apple might have to learn how. Five hundred dollars is now premium Netbook territory as prices have been falling throughout 2008.
I expect that if Apple enters the market they would choose the $600-800 range with a couple of configurations. They need this because Macbooks are no longer the coolest laptops to pull out of your bag…Netbooks are. A glance at the Amazon bestseller list shows Netbooks occupying slots which Macbooks used to live in.
The MSI Wind Netbook was one of the most hotly anticipated products of 2008. Can Apple introduce its own competitor to stop the rising Windows sales?
Whilst Macbooks used to be the laptop of choice for Manhattan coffee shop outings, Netbooks now get the curious admiring looks. In an America looking to downsize cars, energy usage and spending, Netbooks are the Prius of today’s laptop showroom.
Clearly the slowdown in the economy has affected Apple as a seller of premium products. It also seems that Apple’s negative advertising campaign throughout 2008 against PCs may have not had the positive sales effect Apple was hoping for. In fact the plunging iMac sales figures indicate that Apple might have done better through a positive campaign promoting the benefits of the iMac compared to Windows desktops. It may be that consumers simply were unable to identify a positive value of spending the extra bucks on an iMac, which is a classic outcome of a negative advertising campaign, unless the competing product is seen as truly worthless. Clearly not the case in this instance as iMac sales plunged 23% more than Windows desktop sales.
Whilst I think Apple will pull through, it needs to revitalize its line-up to be attractive in today’s economy. And hopefully that revitalization effort will give us reasons to buy Macs, instead of reasons not to buy PCs. I want to want Macs for good reasons, not because I’m told the competition is bad.
Neil Berman
Gigabyte vs Lenovo: The Atomic Clash of the MIDs
I got some hands on time with the upcoming Atom-powered Gigabyte and Lenovo MIDs last week and I’m sure about one thing: the OQO 02 just became very overpriced.
Both the Gigabyte and Lenovo MIDs are expected to come in around $500, albeit running Linux. They both have usable, if very different, keyboards; 
they’re both eminently pocketable and both have Intel’s super-efficient Atom CPU which means tons of battery life. The Lenovo unit I played with even had an Olympic paint job; cute.
Who are they for? No-one really knows yet, but they’ll definitely appeal to the people who are (not) buying the OQO 02 and Samsung Q1 Ultra these days. The 02 is still languishing around the $1,800 mark. The Q1 can now be found knocked down to $800 or so. Neither is likely to match the atomic (pun intended) battery life of the Gigabyte or Lenovo MIDs, which is critical for a pocket computer.
Gigabyte MID has more traditional design and plenty of expansion. Both units have 3.5mm headphone jack:
Will there be Windows versions of these two MIDs? That’s not known as yet, but I don’t think it’s inconceivable. The Atom is certainly capable of it so I’d expect at least to see fanboy photos of Windows booting on one of these units soon after release.
The actual models I tested had modified Linux front ends which are cost effective, but the practical and performance advantages over XP remain unclear. My EEE 2G boots Linux in 25 seconds, but the XP version is not far behind. In fact the cost advantages are only partial these days, as Microsoft recently reduced the license cost for XP Home on ultra low cost PCs.
The Linux implementations on these units was okay with some sweet touches, for example the Lenovo employs an easy swiping motion to scroll through home screen icons. It also has a Mozilla browser named Coolfox – dig the family name.
Having played with a gazillion different Linux front ends now, it would be nice to see a standard emerging. Perhaps we’re still a bit early for that but hopefully it will come in a couple of years. If this doesn’t happen then ultimately the consumer will suffer from having a learning curve attached to each manufacturer’s devices…a bit like cellphones but oh so much deeper.
Lenovo’s MID has an interesting pointing device and takes full size SD cards, unlike Gigabyte’s. Front facing cam is on both units:
Did either of the two capture my imagination? I preferred the Gigabyte’s keyboard layout and overall format, whilst the Lenovo is probably a younger choice aimed at pure surfing and messaging with it’s cellphone style keyboard. The full size SD slot on the Lenovo also gives huge expansion potential, compared to the Gigabyte’s micro-SD limitation. Whether either of them can be successful will depend on persuading people away from buying an EEE-type mini laptop which all offer a bit more (but in a bigger box) for less money.
Look at it another way: Five years ago everyone had desktops and no-one could persuade consumers to buy a laptop second PC. Now everyone has laptops and the 2006-07 challenge was to get people in the mindset of wanting something even smaller. That seemed impossible until the EEE came out and busted out everyone’s perceptions. Now Acer, Dell, HP and MSI are jumping in because it’s going to be a huge market. The same will happen with MIDs once the EEE-format market matures.
So although hordes of people won’t be running out to buy one of these MIDs just yet, recent history suggests that we will in a few years time. Hang in there MID fanboys.
Neil Berman
Asus EEE 900 vs. HP Mini-Note 2133 mini review
It’s been just six months since the launch of the first Asus EEE PC and the sector has exploded. The original UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) name has been supplanted by Microsoft’s ULCPC (Ultra Low Cost PC), Intel’s MID (Mobile Internet Device) and various manufacturer led acronyms – MSI’s forthcoming Wind is actually an abbreviation of WiFi Network Device.
Screen sizes and storage space have increased, but in most cases so have price tags. Asus itself is a case in point, with its recently launched EEE PC 900 offering a nine inch screen and up to 20GB of onboard storage but a hefty $549 sticker price. The majority of the hardware on the inside is similar to the 701, but the increased screen real estate in a similarly sized package makes web browsing and general working more manageable.
Unfortunately the keyboard feels the same size as the original, which I struggle with after a few months of daily use. It’s fine for occasional emails etc but for more consistent work I make too many typos with it as my fingers sometimes land on two keys at once.
The screen seems a bit brighter than the 701 and fills the (slightly larger) lid nicely, with the webcam still preserved. Looks and build quality haven’t kept pace with the competition however, as we segway into the HP Mini-Note…
…which is one of the best looking laptops money can buy.
Powered by a range of VIA C7 processors up to 1.6GHz it sounds at first like it will outperform the EEE’s 900MHz Celeron, but user testimonies indicate that the Mini-Note often gets stuck in the slow lane.
When I tried it out running Vista it was actually pretty decent, loading apps quickly enough for general usage. In fact if you write a lot and have limited multimedia requirements, then the Mini-Note is a fair choice because the keyboard is absolutely awesome.
The keys are large, almost as large as a full size laptop, and I was able to type fluently from the get-go. The trackpad is responsive too and although the buttons are oddly placed on either side, this makes the pad’s area larger and is not a problem if you tap-to-click.
The looks, screen quality and overall usability beat the EEE and the whole thing seems better constructed too, if larger, whilst pricing is similar. The Mini-Note starts at $499 for a Linux build, compared to $549 for the Linux EEE 900. The top of the range Vista Mini-Note model sells for a not so appealing $749.
Unfortunately for both the EEE and Mini-Note, their respective Celeron and VIA processors have a tough time managing multimedia applications fluidly. This is forgiveably in the $299 EEE 2G, but less so in a unit costing around twice as much.
Overall the HP Mini-Note and Asus EEE 900 have strayed away from the original EEE ultra-low-cost concept and are competing with budget laptops but offering limited power. Of course these machines are all about portability but other models due out soon may offer a better balance…
Speaking of which, we will see MSI’s Intel Atom-powered Wind in June. With an 80GB hard drive, ten inch screen and rumored six hour battery life under Windows XP, I’d wait to check out the Wind before handing over the plastic on either the HP or Asus just yet.
theONbutton
Turning the world on, one gadget at a time.
