In the last several years, netbooks have become quite popular for a number of reasons. They succeed because users began to move away from traditional software and into the cloud. This made the optical drive mostly a waste of space and cost. With cloud computing came generally lower processing requirements, and both of these factors allowed laptop makers to trim the excess fat from the usual laptop and turn it into the netbook. Netbooks aren’t perfect however, they work for cloud productivity, but they frequently struggle with anything as soon as it comes to multimedia. Efforts have been made to rectify this issue with discrete graphics, but as Chippy points out, discrete graphics are not the way to go if you want to enable high-efficiency computing.
Instead, Ultrabooks add back the multimedia capabilities that were cut out when netbooks went under the scalpel. Maybe they thought we wouldn’t miss it too much — apparently they were wrong. Intel has added vital hardware encoding and decoding directly to the Ultrabook platform for multimedia playback and basic editing. The processors, while not blazing compared to much larger and heavier laptops, are far more capable of utilizing heavy (in the eyes of a netbook) multimedia applications like iTunes and Spotify, and the same goes for photo viewing and editing software. Instead of discrete graphics, Intel has pushed to return good performance for these specifically missed functions to a completely on-board platform.
Intel has made a good case in favor of Ultrabooks over netbooks, and the queries show that folks are becoming increasingly interested. But it might still be too early to say whether or not that interest will translate into sales. Quantifying the market is challenging and makes it difficult to get a clear picture of where Ultrabooks are heading.
First there’s the issue of the ‘watering down’ of Ultrabooks which is one way to describe consumer confusion over what exactly constitutes an Ultrabook. Ultrabooks are very similar to ‘thin-and-lights’ that have been sold by various companies over the years. The Ultrabook movement has no doubt spurred an increase in thin-and-light production, so sales figures depend on whether or not you want to include those tangential products that are utilizing Intel’s components. Second is that Intel does not manufacture Ultrabooks themselves; they’ve merely defined the Ultrabook and make the underlying platform. Because Ultrabooks are actually produced and sold by many different companies, no one company has the overall sales figures for the whole category. Intel would probably be in the best position to gauge the sales of Ultrabooks based on hardware sold, but don’t forget that the hardware they are selling may find it’s way into thin-and-lights rather than genuine Ultrabooks.
The best way to get a hold on Ultrabooks vs. netbooks would be to look at Atom hardware sales compared to Ultrabook platform hardware sales, and unfortunately it’s up to Intel whether or not they’ll release such figures!
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“This edge means that an Ultrabook owners can go longer between purchases than a netbook owner. Assuming this works out to mean that, on average, Ultrabook owners are spending about as much as netbook owners are spending over time”
Netbooks cost about a quarter of what ultrabooks cost. Unless ultrabooks will last you 8 years, that’s not an accurate guess. Better yet don’t guess at all until empirical data shows up.
The average price for top-end configurations of Ultrabooks from a number of top manufacturers is $1370 as we reported last week:
http://ultrabooknews.com/2012/04/01/ultrabook-price-check-412/
Medium and low end configurations can be found for $1000 or lower.
New netbooks can be found aprox. between $400 and $600 (yes there are some $300 examples but you’re asking for truly low-end specs! [there’s also $700 examples]), meaning an average of about $500.
I think it’s safe to say, given the specs and features, that Ultrabooks can last about twice as long as netbooks before needing to be replaced for performance concerns.
So if the typical netbook cycle is 1.5 years before replacement at $500 per unit, Ultrabooks should be able to satisfy the same user for 3 years at $1000 per unit. So over 3 years, both users spent around $1000, but a market saturated with Ultrabooks is certainly more prestigious than one with cheaper netbooks. Ultrabooks are likely to raise satisfaction ratings for the PC laptop industry over netbooks which is why it is beneficial even if the same amount of money is being spent.
The replacement cycle obvious varies from person to person, for some it might be 2 years per netbook, which would likely translate to 4 years for an Ultrabook. It is a quite subjective comparison, but it is based on my observations of the markets and the users.
And yes this may change depending upon how the average Ultrabook pricing moves, we’ll be keeping an eye on it!
I’d disagree with there only being “some” $300 examples of netbooks. The average sold netbook is still 10″ and the price range for those don’t go above $400 anymore. Even dual core with discrete graphics are below $400 now.
Prices for netbooks have consistently being getting lower and lower since they were first released. Rather it’s some that go down to the $200 mark now like with the Asus Eee PC X101 for example.
Any netbook priced higher is using a the larger 11.6 to 12.1 range using nettop/desktop processor instead of the regular mobile processor and/or adds something like a discrete GPU option. While even then the majority are below $500.
Only the themed luxury models, like the Asus Lamborghini VX6 series, or something like a convertible tablet laptop would go above $500 these days. However, to compare to them you’d have to compare to a Ultrabook with discrete graphics, which would also be priced higher.
So the price difference is larger than you’ve suggested.
While netbook replacement cycles isn’t based on performance. Since netbooks haven’t really changed much in years. Rather people either get netbooks if they need a cheap extra computer or need to replace a broken unit and is one of the reasons they are no longer selling that well.
Really, until Intel decided to get serious about competing in the mobile market the Intel ATOM was on a long 5 year product cycle. Even now they won’t be switching to a two year product cycle until the 22n Silvermont comes out next year and provides the first real update to the ATOM since they were first introduced.
Otherwise it may have taken another 5 years before we saw much progress in the Netbook market and thus little reason for anyone to get a new model. Even with AMD finally seriously competing with Intel in that category there would have been only so much to expect for the price range.
So now, if the netbook market survives, it’s competition that’s finally pushing advancement in that product category and that may or may not get people interested in more regular purchases cycles.
Remember though that there are differences in the product categories and people are more prone to be concerned about performance in the higher price ranges than they are at the lower price ranges.
After all, something like the Amazon Kindle Fire is nowhere near top of the line but sells well because it’s cheap and that’s basically the same idea behind netbooks.
While Ultrabooks seeks to cover a wider price range, they’re still part of the regular laptop market and people expect more from them…
“Ultrabook owners can go longer between purchases than a netbook owner”
Have to agree on the above. I can safely say a good ultrabook can even last you for a good 5 years. With this in mind, it is no wonder why netbook sales are diminishing.
Intel should stop the crappy Atom processors and begin with a stripped down version of the cheapest i3 for the budget conscious buyer. Atom speeds are really stupid. I have a dual core N570 Atom and the netbook is just good for only surfing the Internet.
But be warned, the PC industry is not like before where people got excited with every speed increase and every new version of Windows. Like I said, once people buy these ultrabooks, I am very sure they would keep it at least 3 to 5 years before upgrading to a better one. So in that light, sales might not be that great after all in the long run.
I expect the churn rate on laptops to increase and I believe that’s one of the aims of the Ultrabook. Currently we are looking at 3-4 years renewal rate but when Ultrabooks kick the desktop out of the home and become personal I think the renewal rate will increase. If I was Intel I would be aiming for a 24 month renewal rate. When Ultrabook prices reduce, I think that’s a reasonable expectation.
I was hoping ultrabooks would replace netbooks in that I’ll be able to buy a 10″ ultrabook but that hasn’t happened. There aren’t much good choices in the 11.6″ range either.
Maybe next year I’ll finally get a 10″ notebook without a painfully slow Atom chip. Maybe it’ll be called microbook or whatever marketing comes up with.