Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 19th Dec 2008 23:26 UTC
There might be a lot of companies stating that netbooks are just a fad, and that the whole thing will pass (Sony, Apple), but that isn't stopping several chip companies from putting serious effort into improving the performance of these small netbooks. NVIDIA, AMD, and VIA are all hard at work at improving several aspects of netbook computing.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Having used my netbook for a bit now, I can see some room for improvement.
However, based on the comments above, people are underestimating the best feature of netbooks: the battery life. I get 6 hours of use consistently with my 901 when WiFi is on, or 2 days of suspend, and that opens up so many new opportunities for using a computer. When you combine that with the 2.5 pound weight and the easy suspend, I don't ever have to leave my computer behind or even turn it off. I can take it with me in less than 10 seconds, and I just plug it in when I get home. It feels like I got out of jail.
The coming improvements sound good, particularly the graphics. If you keep the battery life up this would make a great mobile media player - I already use it as such, but it can barely handle 720p output. 1080p output would make hooking it to people's TVs more rewarding.
A faster SSD would be really helpful - I get IO freezes.
A faster or dual CPU would be irrelevant, and could be really bad if it reduced the battery life. My only CPU-bound situation is JavaScript in IE; switching to Chrome solved that better than any CPU upgrade could. You would get more bang for your buck by improving the graphics.
The amount of RAM you have matters a lot since you don't get virtual memory with a SSD. You start to notice how much memory programs use again, and pick programs based on how efficient they are (bye bye, Firefox). More RAM would help, but only if the battery life doesn't suffer.
My netbook was cheap enough that it is replaceable, so next year I will likely get a new one and sell my current one to a friend. As long as I can get the same or better battery life and the same form factor, with some improvements, I'm on the upgrade cycle again.