reviews.cnet.com — With news that users are hacking Windows and Linux Netbooks to run OS X--and run it pretty well--Apple needs to release a Netbook of its own before it loses ground in the highest-growth laptop category.
Feb 27, 2009 View in Crawl 4
aristotle0dudeFeb 28, 2009
Acer makes what? 4-10 bucks margin on each netbook versus 300+ for Apple laptops. What are those Acer guys smoking? Do then survive on ramen noodles? Sorry but 20-50 million profit for 5 million units is practically nothing. It's not even worth it for Apple to spend the R&D on the OS development to get OS X to work well on a netbook let alone the R&D for a cutting edge hardware design.It is precisely this sort of flawed short term thinking at the likes of Dell and Acer that brought about the current economic crisis. Everyone was so busy drumming up sales (volume) without any consideration for risk or profitabliity (margin).Companies like Acer and Dell could end up going under if this economic downturn but Apple can ride it out because of their cash reserves build up from charging healthy margins.
rudegarMar 1, 2009
acer is crap underpowered cheap build broke piles of them some even before warrentywould get a hp or Lenovo or even dell over a acer
thinkdifferentMar 1, 2009
There is an interesting threshold at which point carrying a laptop in your bag becomes unnoticeable. I've had laptops ranging from 7lbs on the high end to the Air at 3lbs. As you drop below 4lbs, you barely notice the laptop anymore. At 3lbs, the Air offers a full-size keyboard & a nice size screen. Netbooks are typically only a few ounces lighter, much thicker (which takes up more room in a messenger bag), have unusable keyboards & tiny screens that are nearly unusable. For the tasks most people say netbooks are good for, note taking, email & checking the web, I'd find them horrible to use. For example, the shrunken keyboard means only the most trivial email messages are possible. With the screen resolution, typically less than 1024x768, most websites need scrolling left & right to use. The iPhone & iPod touch also have limited keyboards & screens, though the browser software intelligently scales the sites to fit. At 1/3 the weight of a netbook, it's a better compromise from a full laptop for those netbook-style tasks & it is about the same price, and fits in your pocket. Ironically, the article claims that Apple should do a netbook since it is a growing segment of the PC notebook market. In the same time period, Apple's regular notebook sales have been seeing higher growth rates than the broader PC notebook market. The iPhone & iPod Touch sales are outpacing the entire market of netbooks. How is this having any impact? All that makes sense are some people really want an Apple notebook & think that if they make a netbook, they can afford one.
thinkdifferentMar 1, 2009
BMW not building an economy car isn't done to save face. In fact, look at Toyota, they've been going more upmarket the past few years & had to release the Scion brand to be the Dell of cars. Quality is important to many people & though the basic elements are the same, how they fit together can have a big impact. I doubt anyone with any sanity would consider a Hyundai & BMW the same. They may not be able to afford the BMW & thus wish that BMW would produce a cheaper car to "compete" in the Hyundai market.Apple in this sense is more like the restaurant business... all the restaurants might go to the same butcher shop, but Apple takes the highest quality pieces (which they pay more for). Chips are the same. Yes, there is a base spec, but they have different grades within those production runs after testing. So, the chip you buy at New Egg & the one Apple buys might have the same part number, but they are not the same chip....
ianryersonMar 1, 2009
Yes, but even then only certain industries/individuals have use for them.
burrgrinderMar 2, 2009
Uhh, they have mini-DVI output, and for $20, you can get a VGA adapter. Best Buy even carries them now, and their cheaper knock-off versions for $15.Actually, from your previous posts and this, it's quite obvious you don't have a clue about Macs.
Closed AccountMar 3, 2009
For $400, this is a great 2nd/3rd computer option, and these are only going to improve: <a class="user" href="http://gizmodo.com/5156903/how-to-hackintosh-a-dell-mini-9-into-the-ultimate-os-x-netbook">http://gizmodo.com/5156903/how-to-hackintosh-a-del ...</a>
zz55Mar 4, 2009
please, kyan, "she"
johnnysoftwareNov 15, 2009
There is no profit margin for NetBook hardware. Microsoft makes money off the Microsoft tax that Windows OEMs pay, whether the unit ships with Windows on it or not.Near term, I don't see why/how Apple would sell OS X for those things - not the current models. If they do, it will probably be when better models than today's come out. In 2 years, the hardware might be decent.Presently, the netbooks on the market are a rip-off. You get Windows 7 Starer on them. It runs only 3 apps at once: Windows 1.0 did better than that, running off of floppies. Supposedly, people will use them to access intranets and the Internet but 2009 is the worst year in history to be using IE+Windows to access the web.The web is riddled with drive-by web viruses that target them and then you hav the worms that invariable get on via network connection, USB thumb drive, or a CD. The web was never designed to be used by computers & web browsers with so many flaws, or to be attacked by so many hackers. IE was caught off-guard too. It has been almost two decades since the Mosaic team sat down at their college and wrote the first version of IE.
johnnysoftwareNov 15, 2009
Netbook has one of the crappiest CPUs around in it. I think it's an old fashioned single-core on, at that. But look at the CPU speed, it's not good.Macs have an Intel Core 2 Duo in them, the plain Macs, that is. The high-priced Macs have even more cores in their CPUs.