In 2008 netbook experienced strong demand with the improvements of display, which grew from the initial 7-8 inch to more acceptable 10 inch screens. People are buying netbooks, not as primary work machines, but as personal machines or secondary machines for those times when sleeker is better. They are willing to pay half of what a laptop computers has on it's price tag for fewer features in a smaller package but proving to be enough for what a portable computer should do on the road. Another feature that boosted demand for them, besides screen size was the availability of Windows XP as operating system apart from the previous Linux that first netbook models on the market came with. The truth is that the first five to ten spots on Amazon dot com best selling computer list was dominated by this kind of ultraportble laptop computers. According to DisplaySearch market tracker in the three month period that ended September 30 netbook sales grew 160 % reaching 5.6 million units. This come o contradict Steve Jobs from Apple who said that "not a lot of them (netbooks) getting sold."On the same period of time only 4.7 million iPhones were sold. Steve Jobs also said that iPhones can do the same things as netbooks when rumours about Apple releasing a a small notebook computer, in the form of a netbook emerged. I personally do not think that will be a surprise from Apple to launch a netbook sometime this year, but knowing Apple we can say that for sure it will not be cheap. With many important improvements announced for this year and the next netbooks will become a feasible option even for companies to consider.
February 28, 2009
February 27, 2009
Laptop computers sales exceeds desktop computers in Q3 in 2008
Following a trend visible in previous years global laptop computers shipments exceeded those of desktops on a quarterly basis for the first time ever in the third quarter 2008, marking a watershed event in the history of the industry, according to iSuppli Corp. Notebook computers shipments rose almost 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3 percent for the same period to 38.5 million units according to the same source. “While the third quarter will be remembered as the time when the scale of the global economic/credit crunch truly became apparent, the PC market managed to deliver strong unit shipment growth during the period,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms at iSuppli.
Top-5 PC OEM listings and rankings for the third quarter of 2008, according to iSuppli:
No.-1 Hewlett-Packard Co. of the United States retained its No.-1 ranking position in the third quarter of 2008, with shipments of 14.9 million units, and a market share of 18.8 percent.
No.-2 U.S. PC maker Dell Inc. maintained its second-place ranking with shipments of slightly less than 11 million units, giving the company a market share of 13.9 percent.
No.-3 Acer, with a market share of 12.2 percent resulting from shipments of 9.7 million during the quarter—a standout performance.
Rounding out the Top-5 PC OEM rankings were Lenovo and Toshiba Corp., ranked fourth and fifth, with market shares of 7.5 and 4.6 percent, respectively.
The Information Network estimates that 11.4 million netbooks were sold in 2008, up from 400,000 in 2007. For 2009, the firm estimates that netbook sales will grow 189 percent to 21.5 million. Meanwhile, the firm estimates that 145.9 million notebooks were sold in 2008 and projects that number will grow 21.8 percent in 2009 to 177.7 million.
Now the 2008 sales confirms that laptop computers becomes the best selling computers and we may say that the best selling laptop computers list became the best selling computers list.
February 25, 2009
Today's best selling laptop on Amazon.com is Asus Eee PC 1000 HE netbook
Today's best selling laptop on Amazon.com is Asus Eee PC 1000 HE netbook.After reading numerous reviews, I think Asus Eee PC 1000HE is the best netbook you can buy now. As Darren Gladstone, PC World said on Washingtonpost.com:“The streamlined and redesigned Asus Eee PC 1000HE takes no prisoners. While the previous Asus Eee PC 1000 offered a solid netbook, Acer's Aspire One stole all the attention with its lean and incredibly affordable approach. With the latest incarnation of the Eee PC 1000, the "HE" might as well stand for "Holy Enhancement!" “. The Eee PC 1000HE is the latest netbook refresh from ASUS that offers a revamped chicklet style keyboard and the new Intel Atom N280 processor. The exterior and interior look nearly identical to the 1000HA and 901, so if you liked the old style you will love this. The biggest change users will find on this new model is the extended 9.5 hour battery life, thanks to a battery 30% larger and improved power management.
The Eee PC 1000HE has a similar chassis to the 1000H. Both have the same black glossy lid and port placement. The 1000HE, however, has worked its glutes to get rid of the unseemly battery bulge found on its older brother’s backside. The system’s battery is now flush with the chassis, giving it a much slimmer profile. However, at 10.3 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches, the 1000HE is still chunky in comparison to other 10-inch netbooks but still a hair thinner than the older, clunkier Eee PC 1000 released last year. Build quality is very good with strong, durable plastics used throughout the body that help keep panels flex-free and the creaks to a minimum. The Asus Eee PC 1000HE laptop holds its own ground inside a backpack, even against other heavy objects competing for space (like other laptops or books). For the average user this means you won’t find oily key impressions on the screen after you wedge this Eee PC into a backpack full of books on your way to class. The first, most obvious thing you'll spot is the cut-out keyboard. Just like you'd find on an Apple MacBook Air or on Sony VAIO laptops, the keys poke through the plastic, creating a wide gap between buttons. In that respect, this feels and looks great, and is generally more usable. And because it uses an island layout, there is no flex to the panel which was the downfall of the Eee PC 1000H. Overall, the manufacturing quality on the 1000HE keyboard is just better. The placement of the keys has also been revamped. There were complains in all ASUS Eee PC reviews about the placement of the Shift key to the right of the up arrow. ASUS must have been listening to them as they have finally pulled the Shift key in to the left of the up arrow now. The new keyboard comes very close to tipping the scales against the HP Mini 1000 and 2140 but it would probably have to be a tie for best netbook keyboard.ASUS uses an Elantech touchpad on the Eee PC 1000HE for its multitouch capabilities, which works great if you want dual finger control, but not so great if you want fast response and sensitivity. I found that it had some lag during quick movement and didn’t have the nice high sensitivity of similar Synaptics models. One problem we noticed after a few hours of use was the touchpad surface slowly peeling up on one side like a loose sticker, but after pressing it back down it didn’t come up again. It may have just been a manufacturing flaw where it was not seated correctly during assembly. The touchpad buttons were large enough for easy triggering by the side of thumb and worked great if you hit them dead center or on the very edge. Feedback was minimal with a very shallow click when pressed. The trackpad is just spacious enough -- I particularly like its metal framing and the few multitouch functions incorporated into the design. However, we found the pad slightly twitchy to control. No deal-breaker, but noticeable.The display. The 10” LED-backlit display found on the Eee PC 1000HE is easy on the eyes and a real treat to view for hours on end. Whites are clear, colors are vibrant, and backlight levels are very bright and consistent. While many netbooks get the short end of the stick for some components such as processing power, they easily make up for it in screen quality. The panels found on most netbooks offer better viewing angles and brighter backlight levels than screen found on larger notebooks. Vertical viewing angles which tend to quickly invert colors on full-size notebooks stay accurate longer on the display found on the 1000HE. Horizontal angles are the same way, allowing the user to easily share a movie with a passenger on either side. To check the screens viewing angles see this links for front, side, upper and from below views. However, the highly polished bezel that keeps the screen in place can get a little distracting at times.
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Specifications:
- Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz processor
- 160GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive (Seagate 5400.5)
- 1GB of DDR2 RAM (667MHz)
- Windows XP Home operating system with SP3
- 10” WSVGA LED-Backlit 1024 x 600 LCD
- Ports: 3 USB 2.0, 1 VGA monitor out, headphone jack, microphone input, SD card reader (SDHC compatible), Kensington lock slot, Ethernet 10/100
- Webcam (1.3 MP)
- Wireless: 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0
- One-year warranty
- Size: 10.47” x 7.3” x 1.12-1.50”
- Weight: 3lbs 2.4oz, 3lbs 9.9oz travel
- Price: $399 ($374 with $25 preorder discount)
System performance was great for average use which includes browsing the web, typing up a document, or doing light work inside a photo editor such as GIMP. There is not much of an increase in performance over the older Asus Eee PC 1000HA, even though the Asus Eee PC 1000HE is technically faster with a higher clock speed and front side bus. In some benchmarks notebookreview.com saw results that decreased, especially with the newer Seagate 5400.5 hard drive. Access times ended up being 50% slower than the previous 5400.4 model, even though every other variable stayed the same including capacity.
HD video playback capabilities were roughly the same as previous Intel Atom netbooks, playing some lightly encoded 720p trailers with 40-50% CPU usage, and normal HD content like TV episodes at 60%+ while also dropping frames. The Intel N280 processor does support a newer GN40 chipset, but it does not appear to be included with this netbook. All of their testing software points to the standard Intel 945 chipset found in other Atom netbooks. For the sake of comparison, most of the netbooks that came out late last year used the N270 CPU, which runs at a lower frequency (1.6-GHz) and a slower frontside bus speed (533MHz as compared with 667 MHz in the N280). The laptopmag.com team run a comparison GeekBench benchmark versus the Eee PC 1000H. The Eee PC 1000H notched a score of 871 (888 for processor integer performance and 748 on processor floating point performance). The Eee PC 1000HE scored 38 points higher with a score of 909 (931 for processor integer performance and 780 on processor floating point performance).
Port selection is average compared to most netbooks, but less than what some new netbooks offer. ASUS doesn’t include an ExpressCard slot for external WWAN radios, like the Lenovo S10 or HP Mini 2140. The 1000HE offers three USB, LAN, headphone/mic jacks, a Kensington lock slot, and VGA. A SDHC 4-in-1 multi-card reader located on the side handles flash cards from digital cameras or storage expansion. You can check the front (activity lights), rear (battery), left (Kensington lock slot, LAN, 1 USB, Headphone/Mic) and right (SDHC 4-in-1 card reader, 2 USB, VGA, AC Power) views of ports placement.
Heat buildup and noise from the cooling system was minimal during battery powered use, as the system scales back the processor which then puts off less heat. While on AC power using high performance or super performance modes the system does warm up quite a bit, leaving the fans running constantly at a low speed. You can also check this link to see pictures with the external temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit that notebookreview.com team measured on test runs – front view and back view.
The 1000HE has a battery that is substantially larger than the one found in the old 1000HA that gave only 4 hours and 28 minutes run time. To move up towards the claim of nine and a half hours ASUS bumped the capacity from 49Wh to 63Wh and tweaked the power management software so the processor sipped even less juice. Both of these changes led to some very impressive real world results. With the screen brightness set to 60%, wireless active, and processor set to auto it stayed on for 7 hours and 36 minutes. If you are going for longest possible time, you can shut off the wireless cards, put it into power saving mode, and lower the brightness all the way and it gets an estimated 9 hours and 20 minutes of battery life.
The speakers are good enough to enjoy some music or a movie, but they are too small to produce any bass or midrange. At peak volume the 1000HE can fill up a smaller room with music to share with a couple of friends, but you might be fighting against background noise in a public setting. Headphones are a great option for private listening or if you want volume levels high enough to hurt your ears.
ASUS has built in a very convenient one key solution (F9) for recovery. The Eee PC 1000HE netbook does not have optical drivers to read the recovery CD (so do all other netbooks). So the function key is very useful when you need it.
Other notable features thrown into the mix: InterVideo WinDVD (which seems to be a little bit of overkill, I'd recommend you try out KMPlayer), and 18 months of 10GB of free online storage.
The Eee PC packaging comes with an ASUS Eee PC 1000HE, AC adapter, and printed operating instructions. It's backed by a 1-year warranty on parts and labor.
I found a customer review with a heads up about the 802.11n for this netbook. The radio in the Asus Eee PC 1000HE will only see/connect to 802.11n on the 2.4 GHz spectrum. This is a let down because all the speed and range advantages of 802.11n is when you use the 5ghz spectrum not the 2.4ghz spectrum. making 802.11n more of a buzz word for this product, and not anything useful.
Bottom line ASUS made some good improvements to the Eee PC1000HE, most notably the newer keyboard. The keyboard is more comfortable to type on over the old style thanks to the new chiclet keyboard design and the improved spacing helps to reduce typing errors. The keyboard on the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE is what people have been hoping to see from the netbook leader for months now and gives it an edge in the now very crowded market. The design has few changes, with some areas gaining glossy paint over a matte finish before, but the average user might not tell the difference unless both were sitting next to each other. The newer Intel Atom processor with a faster clock speed and faster bus speed had little improvement over its predecessor and HD content is still unfeasible unless you are playing low bitrate videos. The battery life also improved by a wide margin, moving past seven hours under normal use, which is the greater than any netbooks on the market. Overall I would say ASUS has an impressive new netbook and a very affordable starting price. You can always find a better netbook down the road, like a dual core netbook with the same price (if not cheaper) by next year. But if you cannot wait for so long, Asus Eee PC 1000HE is surely one of the best solutions in the market.
