In what is about as surprising as the sun rising in the morning, Michael Dell has started talking down netbooks. Dell made his comments about netbooks at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley, and considering the impact of netbooks on manufacturers' bottom lines, it's really not that surprising.
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Member since:2009-10-03
Dell's just stating the bleedin' obvious - a Netbook is a handy, secondary device - but one is no substitute for a larger screen unit. I have an Acer Aspire One (using it now) that I take with me to site so I can check email, answer calls as if at my desk (it has VoIP software installed), perform diagnostics and copy data to it. It also goes on holiday with me specifically because of its size, but I wouldn't want to work on it all day. At a pinch I'd have it as my main machine (the processor is powerful enough for most of what I do), but when at my desk I'd have to hook a monitor, mouse and keyboard to it.
As hinted, the other reason for Dell's whinge is that the profit margin on Netbooks is too darn low - hence the truly daft market push to make 'Netbooks' with 11-12" screens that actually cost more than some low-end laptops with better processors and 15" displays!
Oh, and the main reason I replied to your postt...forget the abomination that is Adobe Acrobat Reader and install Foxit Reader instead - no bloat and it'll be fine for the vast majority of PDF needs.
Member since:2008-09-14
Sumatra PDF viewer is quite nice as well:
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/index.html
Member since:2005-11-13
Last I checked, FoxitReader didn't allow me to copy text from PDF files. If that hasn't changed, it's pretty useless to me.
Edited 2009-10-14 22:11 UTC
Member since:2006-01-27
Member since:2009-08-19
WorknMan, I totally share your point.
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Commenting a bit on linker3000, as desktop I have a laptop with external keyboard/mouse since 3 years ago (core duo, 2GB, 17 inches), and external monitor (26 inches) since 1 year ago.
But, if tomorrow my laptop dies, I would like to purchase something like an Atom dual core, 13 inches, no optical drive. With ION for gaming, at most.
So, what I mean is: my 'core' machine could be perfectly a 13-inches-netbook. I would only attach it to external keyboard/mouse/monitor while at home/office.
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Agreeing with Thom: Hardware makers can still try to sell us portable super-computers as hard as they want. It's just that we don't need V12 engines to go shopping, and we won't pay extra for them.
Member since:
2005-11-13
Even if I don't own one, I directly benefit from their existence. Without netbooks, it is likely that Windows 7 would've been even slower than Vista, instead of the other way around. I hope more apps (*cough* Adobe Reader *cough*) follow in Win7's footsteps and trim down the fat.