Judging by the photos and Tech Corner’s writeup, the laptop is about 10-inches in size with a 9-inch screen, under 3 pounds, has 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD and standard internet connections.
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Tech Corner claims the Netbook uses a 900 MHz Celeron processor and would sell for around $400. This contradicts reports that the upcoming Netbooks would be using the Intel Atom Diamondville processor and fall between the $250-$300 price range. ^
The Ultra Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC) market is heating up ever since the Asus Eee enhanced the idea of the Palm Foleo (or, for that matter, Alphasmart Dana) and made this nifty, light, clean-looking, phone-like portable with mostly full size keyboard and monitor. Intel’s latest, the NetBook, misses the mark.
Setting full steam for failure, this device ignores the basic principle of industrial design: a tool’s success can be measured in terms of how easily it adapts to its use. In other words, what do they users want to do that motivates them to buy one product over another? In the case of UMPCs, they want simple, fast, hassle-less access to a few basic applications (web, mail, word processing).
Intel takes another tack, which is to assume that people want a miniaturized laptop. This is a classic mistake made by someone who finds a way to describe what they see others doing, and by doing so, creates a category which has nothing to do with its actual use. We can describe the Asus Eee as a miniature laptop, but that does not describe its actual function, which is more like a portable web/text platform.
The Intel Netbook is ugly like one of the cheap Dell or HP laptops, it’s heavy, and it seems to carry with it the interface weight of a normal machine. I think it’s a 180 degree miss that these corporate superstars have embarked upon here. The genius of the Asus Eee is that you unfold it like a phone, it comes up quickly, and for the few tasks that 90% of laptops do anyway, it’s painless and then you fold it up and put it away. You can stick it in your purse (or “man-bag”).
What makes the Asus Eee succeed is that it’s an appliance, not a computer. It doesn’t carry with it the baggage of trying to be everything that a big computer is, but smaller. It embraces its limitations. The positive tradeoff is that it becomes simple to use and maintain and people love its flexibility within the narrow range of tasks actually needed.
With UMPCs, it’s tempting to categorize them as classroom machines like the OLPC, but the real story here is that they are machines for a highly mobile group of people who are increasingly tired of maintaining computers. They have a big one at the office, and it gets upgraded every three years. They may have an older one at home. But their time is in high demand, and what they need to do outside of the office is very simple.
They also like their portability. I’m sorry, but unpacking cables and plugging in is not portability, nor is adding a three-to-five pound component with its own bag and accessories. People want minitops to be like their cell phones: slip it in your bag, plug it in once a day, use it in short bursts. They don’t need a desktop replacement.
There’s a market out there for these devices, but so far only the Asus Eee and MSI Wind appear to have a chance in (insert morbid afterlife place here) of meeting the demand. The difference is in realistic, aesthetically pleasing industrial design.