Also it becomes even better by imagining it in Bane's voice.
Netbooks didn't get screwed up, it's just that what most people want from a cheap device is primarily content consumption which is done better by tablets.
The upgrade cycle with phones and tablets might be starting to slow as well.
Oh they did. Every new generation of netbooks was actually worse than the previous one (I don't even know how that was possible, but it happened).
Hard disk space converged on 320GB, RAM on 1/2GB, display size was never seemingly available greater than 1024x768 and battery plateaued at ~5 hours.
I adored my first netbook. My second was blah. By the third I was starting to think everybody in the PC market was certifiably insane. What on earth made them think they should release computers that get worse year on year???
A netbook that gets better every year for $250-350 will have a razor-thin profit margin. If it has to have Microsoft Windows Special Edition on it, 10-30% of the price tag goes to MS. Joe Average wouldn't buy a computer that doesn't run whatever brand name he recognizes, so Windows is a requirement.
A tablet isn't a "computer", so it doesn't need to run Windows in order to sell, it needs to run Facebook and Angry Birds. It can sell for $250-350 and have a decent margin, and then there are so many of them being made that the parts cost drops and the margin gets better.
A Google Nexus 7 now has everything except a keyboard in terms of netbook hardware, but it gives up no margin to MS and has a market big enough for economies of scale.
Meanwhile, whatever Intel is pushing as an Ultrabook can go for $1000-1400 because it starts as a high-end desktop replacement and then gets features shaved away. Except nobody with any sense buys them, and the usual bulk purchasers of laptops that don't make sense (Fortune 500 companies) aren't re-buying machines as often, and when they do, sometimes it's a fruit machine in offices which would never have bought those five years ago.
(Why? because of you, dear HN reader. The alpha suits know that the alpha techs demand the best hardware, and they can see the logos glowing on the back of your screen better than you can.)
Bullshit.
>A netbook that gets better every year for $250-350 will have a razor-thin profit margin. If it has to have Microsoft Windows Special Edition on it, 10-30% of the price tag goes to MS.
And if you count all of the payments they get for preinstalling crap, I think it cancels out most if not all of the windows license.
Or they could just install linux. Some did (not enough though).
>Joe Average wouldn't buy a computer that doesn't run whatever brand name he recognizes, so Windows is a requirement.
The entire netbook industry was kicked off by the linux brand name. So that makes little sense.
>A tablet isn't a "computer", so it doesn't need to run Windows in order to sell
Android or iOS are as much brands as windows or linux are.
>A Google Nexus 7 now has everything except a keyboard in terms of netbook hardware, but it gives up no margin to MS and has a market big enough for economies of scale.
Netbooks also had a market big enough for economies of scale too.