Will tablets w/ BT kbds eat all netbooks alive?

Will the netbook market collapse in 2011, much to Jerry Shen’s chagrin? Having “invented” (“productized” is more accurate, there was nothing new on the mobo) the netbook with the eee PC, ASUS and the other netbook makers have watched iPad and its ilk zip through the tropical storm stage… they are now a typhoon. Faster growth than netbooks.

I say by the end of 2011, the netbook AND traditional tablet PCs will be a tropical depression, or even over, replaced by tablet PCs equipped with bluetooth keyboards, mice, headphones, powered speakers. Even ASUS is banking on it.

Once Android 3.0 and the Google Tablet hit, the netbook is dead, dreck, bupkis, and with it, the tablet with hinged keyboard. A simple tablet with dual-core Atom (Cedar Trail), i3, i5, or i7 CPU, USB 3.0, WWAN, and wireless keyboard is where the “netbook replacement” and “business tablet” markets will be. Some gen 1 devices will have voice calling in addition to IP telephony. The tablet with HW keyboard will fade because when docked vertically to edit documents (something most people do), the hinged keyboard is useless… you’ll want a wireless keyboard, and who wants to carry around a keyboard on those days when your work profile is touchscreen?

CES next month may turn into the Great Divide, esp. if Android 3.0 and the Google Tablet debut.

Not if they cost more than a netbook or don’t run Windows (or OSX)…

Some people actually have to work for a living, a tablet is not much use to me.

I will say it again. Anyone who denies that this is inevitable has almost without fail, never used a tablet (which right now means iPad) for any period of time.

Cannibalization from netbook to tablet is already at around 50% or more. See iPad thread for more data and references.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=85583&start=499

HeadHonchoII, I believe you are wrong about “being about able work for a living” on a tablet. This is highly dependent on the type of work, and the modality in which you work. Here’s an example of a spec session we did once. That’s about 16-20 whiteboards worth of material in one shot. This was e-mailed as PDF and was being built immediately after. This is “agile” process and JIT spec delivery taken to the extreme and not easily done without the tablet. There are numerous other scenarios that are better on the tablet than on a typical PC.

My feeling is that the tablet will be a polarizing device. The medium term equilibrium will be more powerful office machines that may or may not be mobile, coupled with very mobile devices such as tablets for all typical “consumer computing” and “media consumption” use cases, ie: computing at home. Anecdotally, I am not the only one of my colleagues and friends who more often than not take only a tablet and phone home, no other “computers”. When I travel, I bring the tablet and phone and that’s it. Migration to webapps and complete format viewing, creation, editing, annotating capabilities on the tablets have removed all hurdles.

Tablets are great for consumption of content. For content creation, not so much. If I got one I’d need to get a keyboard to make it truly usable, but I’m not sure I see the advantages of, say, an iPad over an 11-inch Macbook Air, which is nearly the same size and weight, but has full OSX and full-size keyboard/trackpad.

Depends on the type of content and modality. There are a number of content-creation scenarios where the tablet is much better than a typical desktop/laptop form factor. For specialist scenarios, a standard PC rig makes sense. But for the other 90%+ of creation scenarios, the tablet is either just fine or quite excellent.

The MacBook Air is not a netbook and it also priced at the equivalent of 2 to 3 iPads. Apples to iPads.

My assumption is that Android tablets will be the volume leader in this space perhaps as early as Q3 of next year, and netbooks will be something people buy only if they don’t have the budget for a tablet or a “real” PC. After using the extremely disappointing Samsung Tab, I am worried about what the first breed of Android tablets will do to people’s perceptions of tablet devices. The experience on that device was downright abysmal, and the “official” tablet support on Android devices is not until the “Honeycomb” release in late Q1-Q2 of next year. Which means there are going to be a lot of tablets sold with very bad user experiences until then. This has a danger of leaving a bad impression of tablets on people until the “real” Android tablet OS ships.

That’s just it… if you need a HW keyboard, you take one with you, otherwise, it stays at the office.

By the end of 2011, the high end of the pure tablet spectrum will be desktop replacements, e.g., an i7-940XM quad-core tablet, with a complete range of wireless peripherals and USB 3.0 ports (4x to 5x the speed of eSATA). The high-end tablets won’t be equal to gamer builds, but who besides gamers needs insane MIPS and water-cooling? On the low end, i3-3xxM tablets will debut at CES, and Cedar Trail by Computex in June.

The current Atom-based netbooks play back PowerPoint OK, but try making changes in the file.

:2cents: Don’t buy a keyboarded tablet or a netbook. If you need portable power now in a small footprint, get a Lenovo X201, a real notebook for a few hundred USD more than a netbook.

That’s just it… if you need a HW keyboard, you take one with you, otherwise, it stays at the office.[/quote]

From experience, no you do not need a hardware keyboard. Absolutely NOT.

Firstly, even when using your laptop, the amount of time you spend actually typing with a keyboard is quite minimal compared to viewing and pointing/clicking.
Secondly, the soft keyboard on the iPad is very very very fast. It is not a handicap in any sense of the word. Because it is dynamic, it has advantages of being multi-mode and context-driven. I cannot say good things about my experience with keyboards on 7" tablets. I assume the 10" Android tablet soft keyboards will be comparable to the one on the iPad, which once again is excellent.

If I’m writing a patent application or contract, I use a HW keyboard and HW mouse. If I’m shopping, on a forum, or other light typing, a touchscreen is fine.

When you dock a tablet, you need a HW keyboard.

Ergo, keyboards are indispensable for some tasks and for some users.

Well netbooks might reduce in number but more powerful small laptops will still be very popular. I have seen tablets in action and they won’t be very useful for me for a few reasons.

  1. I need to do work assignments quite often while travelling and write e-mails and modify reports. Basically I need to type a fair bit. I also need good processing power to open multiple applications and do my work quickly.
  2. Having a tablet means I’d have to lug that (aswell as keyboards, mouse etc) around with everything else, then everytime I had do something I’d have to find all the pieces and connect them together, no thanks! I can use my phone to browse the internet for quick access.
  3. I already have a home PC and a laptop and have trouble keeping everything synchronised, it will be worse with a tablet.
  4. Taiwanese and Asians like to type a lot while using MSN, Facebook etc, can a tablet handle that?

The type of laptop I am thinking of getting is the Thinkpad, fits just right between the netbook and notebook for me.

From my limited experience with a tablet, I think that means a bluetooth keyboard. At least until dictation software takes off and people start mumbling to themselves in coffee shops.

[quote=“headhonchoII”]3. I already have a home PC and a laptop and have trouble keeping everything synchronised, it will be worse with a tablet.[/quote]No dropbox?

That’s just it… if you need a HW keyboard, you take one with you, otherwise, it stays at the office.[/quote]

From experience, no you do not need a hardware keyboard. Absolutely NOT.

Firstly, even when using your laptop, the amount of time you spend actually typing with a keyboard is quite minimal compared to viewing and pointing/clicking.
Secondly, the soft keyboard on the iPad is very very very fast. It is not a handicap in any sense of the word. Because it is dynamic, it has advantages of being multi-mode and context-driven. I cannot say good things about my experience with keyboards on 7" tablets. I assume the 10" Android tablet soft keyboards will be comparable to the one on the iPad, which once again is excellent.[/quote]

Unless you’re psychic and have access to my experiences and needs, please stop using the second person. I tend to do a lot typing, and while touchscreens are borderline usable, I do need a physical keyboard for things like long articles and books.

From my limited experience with a tablet, I think that means a bluetooth keyboard. At least until dictation software takes off and people start mumbling to themselves in coffee shops.

You see I don’t what a dropbox is but I assume it is some sort of shared folder system that you can set…but that is just not something most people will know about.

From my limited experience with a tablet, I think that means a bluetooth keyboard. At least until dictation software takes off and people start mumbling to themselves in coffee shops.

I don’t want to put together bits and pieces to make a computer before I do by work, I want to turn it on and start working! The other thing is I like to do some work off-line, especially outlook and Word and Excel, it is important to be able to do that as when I get connectivity I am ready to send on the stuff I have completed. So far the only thing I have seen people do with tablets is read comic books and watch movies. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind having one for leisure but it doesn’t fit well into my work/travel scheme of things.

What I like best about tablets is that they are on all the time and don’t have to be tethered to use, since the battery lasts a looong time. Turning on my computer requires a few seconds for it to wake up, or several seconds to boot up.

I use an iPad for surfing the net, all my reading, and replying to short emails. Anything more in depth, I can use my desktop for. My wife has a netbook, but keeps using the iPad since it is way more mobile around the house.

Here you go: dropbox.com/

This is something that people are rapidly learning about, and everyone will know about soon enough.

It is a shared folder system.
It’s free.
It’s dead, dead easy. (I even use it to send audio books to my grandmother to listen to on the iPod I gave her a few years ago.)

Once you have it set up on your computers, you don’t have to do anything. Edit your Word files at the office, save them in a folder in dropbox, go home and there they are. Open the app on your iPhone, there it is.

Seriously, if you’re having trouble synchronizing across multiple computers, this will save you headaches.

ORLY?

It was lunch time, so… got some DATA:
speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com/

On a Macbook: 63 WPM
On an iPad (with auto capitalize turned off for the test): 64 WPM

I have never been the fastest at typing, but I was faster on the iPad than the Macbook. Hmm. Why? Because I trust the soft keyboard and the excellent autocorrect lets me hamfist the input with impunity.

I went 40 WPM on an iPhone in landscape.

Tips on this with iOS: if you are trying to type a word your soft keyboard does not know, simply add a dummy character at the end, then delete the character. This will get around the autocorrect trying to fix the word. Also double tapping the space bar gets a period and a space.

[quote=“headhonchoII”]Well netbooks might reduce in number but more powerful small laptops will still be very popular. I have seen tablets in action and they won’t be very useful for me for a few reasons.

  1. I need to do work assignments quite often while travelling and write e-mails and modify reports. Basically I need to type a fair bit. I also need good processing power to open multiple applications and do my work quickly.
  2. Having a tablet means I’d have to lug that (aswell as keyboards, mouse etc) around with everything else, then everytime I had do something I’d have to find all the pieces and connect them together, no thanks! I can use my phone to browse the internet for quick access.
  3. I already have a home PC and a laptop and have trouble keeping everything synchronised, it will be worse with a tablet.
  4. Taiwanese and Asians like to type a lot while using MSN, Facebook etc, can a tablet handle that?

The type of laptop I am thinking of getting is the Thinkpad, fits just right between the netbook and notebook for me.[/quote]

All of your reservations are addressed by the data above. Instant messaging is aggregated extremely well using IM+.

Fast app switching to me has transformed the device into a very useful multi-tasking workhorse.

I will state this yet again. Don’t knock it until you really try it. I have posted the data to back this up. It’s a slippery slope to pure ludditeness.

Last week I used an iPad for three days as my main computer. During that time, I wrote two whitepapers, a complete spec including mockups and logic flows, annotated and edited several documents including a business-development agreement. I made a Keynote presentation, faster than I would have with a desktop. I did some proformas in Numbers (spreadsheet). I managed a live bug/work-item tracker that has 9 active developers grinding away in it. I made and answered probably several hundred e-mails. I had GTalk, Facebook Chat and Skype chat all running. All without a keyboard.

I think I may have even edited some pictures using Photoshop Lite and Sketchbook. Actually, yah I did. I used Sketchbook to weed someone’s head out of a background for a profile picture. It’s definitely not full photoshop, but it’s plenty good for on the move and you’re not going to be doing real Photoshop on something as portable (although you can get pretty damn close). So other than coding and CAD, I think that pretty much covers the key scenarios.

Don’t fear it so much. It really can do this, and it’s actually very good at it.

On the Dropbox. Use it. If you are not already, it will change your workflow for better and forever. USB thumbdrives and “sneakernet” have already been a very minimal part of my workflow in the past year and I figure they will totally go away within the in next few years for almost everyone.

Well, it is true that everyone who knows me is aware that I hate gadgets and hardly ever use those electronic thingamajiggies. But you really need to realize that your “data” is personal, anecdotal experience that does not equal objective, universal truth for everyone. It’s really lurvely that you can type quickly on your tablet, but some of us have tried it and found it gets in the way.

PS: I don’t mean to criticize you personally, it’s just that everyone has different needs and preferences, and while I may eventually get used to typing on such a keypad, my experience thus far isn’t as rosy as yours.

I generally dislike Apple products and don’t own a single one, but when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad he made a great comment that I’ll paraphrase as “netbooks may do a lot of things but they don’t do ANYTHING well”.

When I bought my laptop I looked at netbooks and I agree, they are garbage. Keyboard too small, screen quality sucks, pointing device sucks, CPU too slow, and battery life generally on par with a laptop (mine gets > 7 hours). So if you are really talking pad device vs. netbook, then yes, I agree, the netbook will be gone. I think for personal use, pad devices will take over as Android can penetrate and the OS is not a big issue. For what people will use them for in personally use, they can cope with different OSes.

But for business use, I think a laptop still has a place. I don’t think mid/large companies will migrate their infrastructure. I realize that there is a lot of cross compatibility as you can read a PDF on Android, etc, but I just don’t see moving away from a powerful machine running Windows.