Befuddled Customers Find Netbooks Are Nyetbooks, Notebooks Are Notbooks
The majority of people in the market for a laptop can't tell the difference between notebooks and netbooks, and are disappointed to end up with one when they thought they bought the other, an NPD survey finds.
The Christian Science Monitor reports on notebook/netbook envy:
It looks easy enough on paper, but in practice, telling netbooks and notebooks apart can be quite difficult. So says NPD, a market research firm, which today released the results of a poll of approximately 600 consumers. According to NPD, "60 percent of consumers who purchased a netbook instead of a notebook thought their netbooks would have the same functionality as notebooks."
That's a mouthful, eh? Here's the translation: A whole lot of folks bought a bright and shiny netbook, only to discover the pretty little gizmo was a little… underpowered. Needless to say, these consumers were a little disgruntled. Only 58 percent of consumers who bought a netbook instead of a notebook said they were very satisfied with their purchase, NPD reports, compared to 70 percent of consumers who planned on buying a netbook right from the get-go.
For a refresher, netbooks are barebones devices built for portability and ease of use, most often lacking sizable hard drives or disc drives. Notebooks are plain-old laptops. Wikipedia, which knows everything, breaks down the differences between the two.
Netbook or notebook? A majority of consumers can't tell the two apart [Christian Science Monitor]
(Photo: DCvision2006)
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Comments:
If you want a notebook and paid less than $700 chances are you'll be disappointed.
Of course, with laptops getting smaller, and netbooks getting biggers, there isn't a large red line that distinguishes the two.
It's a sliding scale, making the NPD research mostly useless.
Jeez don't people look at hard drive space? I've used the Asus EEE PC and now have the HP mini - both are my "travel" computers and I love them both.
I use them for email, moving pictures around, web surfing, and use large memory cards for picture storage. (again while traveling)
Actually that said if you don't know the difference chances are you aren't doing much more than the above...
My mom asked me to go to the store and check out a "laptop" she was thinking of buying. She likes to play the Reel Deal casino games. I'm fairly computer saavy, and it took a few minutes for me to figure out there was no disk drive. So I can definitely see how someone with limited computer knowledge would mistakingly buy a netbook instead of a notebook.
We recently purchased an Acer Aspire One and knew what we were getting. We love it aside from a few quirks that are inherent. It is surprisingly powerful though, more so then we thought. I was able to load and run at extremely choppy frame rates the introduction to Half Life 2. One the game started though, it crashed. I thought just playing the intro was 10x more than it should have been able to handle.
@enthreeoh: If it costs less thatn $400 and has a screen tht makes you squint after five minutes, it's a not a notebook.
Disclaimer, I love my 9" Acer, it's great for light browsing, emergency Gibson hacking, and is sadly faster than most of the PC's I've owned.
@enthreeoh:
No way. If you watch the Sunday sale flyers, you can find plenty of decent notebooks for ~$500. They're consumer-grade, but they're more than adequate for most users.
@Gokuhouse: A few weeks after the original EEEs came out, someone had overclocked it to run HL2 at a fairly decent pace.
@jamesdenver: can you expound a bit on the EEE and mini? I've been looking at them for ages but can't bring myself to take the plunge. I don't travel-with-computer much (I have a laptop for couch surfing, not for lugging around) but I'd sort-of like something small and cheap for away-from-home web browsing and word processing.
Isn't this the kind of thing that those super-awesome Best Buy salespeople, who have clearly demonstrated on their commercials that they know everything about what kind of computer you want, should warn customers about?
Just simply make sure people know these aren't full-function notebooks?
Consumers have no idea - it looks like a notebook, it must be a notebook.
We love out netbook. Its an Acer with a 120 gig drive. Even Plays Wow Decently.
I'd say the marker for a notebook is a standard size keyboard. If the keys are smaller than a normal keyboard, you have a netbook.
42% of netbook buyers assumed there was no major difference in the $800 gap from netbook to notebook-with-discrete-graphics and were disappointed when it couldn't play games. These are the same people who assume that the cheap ones with "Ubuntu" are just for fans of the Boston Celtics. You cannot help or satisfy them, and consumer friendliness has nothing to do with it.
@tailstoo: Slap on an external DVD drive and its like a notebook from 3 years ago. So its a new 3 year old PC.
@enthreeoh: I got a Dell notebook last year for $430 shipped with dual cores, 2gb ram and dvd burner. It's got almost the same specs as my desktop, what more do you need?
My netbook after upgrades cost $350, and that's only because I went for the high end RunCore SSD. The netbook is not a power house, but it's got decent specs, 1.6ghz, 2gb ram, 32gb ssd. Not great for video, but that's not what it's for.
Well, that's my Asus eeepc 1000h running windows7 (dual boot with xp)...runs fast enough to do what I need, and I purchased it knowing what I would need it for... I'm happy. (and yay! consumerist for using my pic)
Customers get greedy when they see the price and not really knowing that what they are buying is three-year old technology and missing many of the essentials... Netbooks are good for maybe one year of very basic use. Truth is many of the laptops are taking the underpowered route too to cut costs so the differences aren't necessarily that great. I second enthreeoh above - if you aren't paying $700 or more you won't be satisfied with the result.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I bought an Acer Aspire One this month off craigslist for like 175ish.
It runs cool and light. Ideal for using on cafe tables, and i guess on those tiny airplane trays too.
It is not a powerhouse, but is fairly quick. If all you do on it is to listen to music, browse, maybe watch some videos on hulu and do email/word processing, it should be more than enough.
The tiny and stiff trackpad is annoying, so I use a small mouse with it. The keyboard is small, but you can get used to it. Slows down your typing a fair bit though. (Not that it matters most of the time).
I pair it with a monitor and wireless keyboard combo at home, and it feels just like using a regular desktop.
If I bought a new one, I would buy an HP, Dell or Lenovo netbook, mainly because they have better build qualities.
Verdict: If you do not want a gaming/video editing machine that is easy to carry around and you do not mind small screens and keyboards, these should serve you well.
I would NOT use it as a primary computer though. Not without pairing it with a monitor/keyboard and an extra gig or ram anyways.
I would disagree, you can get "real" notebooks with 12-inch screens and slightly undersized keyboards. The real marker is what kind of CPU it has. If it has a "real" CPU such as a Core 2 Duo, Athlon X2, or even a Celeron, it's a notebook. If it has an Atom, it's a netbook.
@YourTechSupport: Well, but in all fairness, someone who cant tell the difference between Netbook and notebook probably cant overclock either.
We just got an AspireOne and it's great for what it is. A little bit of research (or even just paying attention to what you're looking at) and you shouldn't have that many surprises. Considering most people have pretty basic needs, a netbook can handle most of them (except watching DVDs and playing games).
I'm very happy with the purchase and am looking forward to taking out on my next business trip instead of the cumbersome company laptop I usually took. Now I just have to rip a couple movies (backups of movies I own) with the desktop so I have something to watch on the flight. The Acer has a 160gb drive and sounds good through headphones, so more than enough for my needs.
@jamesdenver: My "regular" laptop and my netbook both have the same disk space.
You can find most netbook models with 160+ gigs of hard disk space these days. Unless you get the SSD versions, which have anywhere between 4 to 32 gigs.
Am a proud owner of a Nyetbook and a Notbook.
Funny thing is, except for the processor, screen size and weight, both of them are virtually identical in specs.
@tbax929: It has no disk drive, but it does have a solid state drive, which is a plus. Most netbooks have no moving parts which means less to break down.
@MostlyHarmless: I do use my Aspire as my only computer. My hands are small so the keyboard doesn't bother me. I am not a power user, so it suits my needs perfectly. I did get XP so it added to the cost, but saved money with OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office.
When I need a cd/dvd drive or anything my netbook can't do, I borrow someone else's fancier computer and shuttle stuff around via flash drives
We need to stop pretending that we need to create a different label for every possible variation on a theme.
Laptop, notebook, ultraportable, desktop replacement, netbook, blah blah puke.
They're laptops. Some are big, some are small, they have different features. Pick out a laptop based on what's important to you, and leave the BS label-fetishing to someone else.
@ScarletsWalk, @Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Yeah, I recommend getting XP, and if you want better performance, dual boot it with Ubuntu. XP helps in cases where something does not support linux.
Another thing that helps is to use resource-light softwares when possible. I have kept my home computers absolutely office-suite free so far, but from my experience I think Open Office loads a bit slower but runs faster and lighter when loaded fully.
And make sure to note which version you are getting... the SSD or the HDD. SSDs are more shock resistant, but are more expensive, ergo have slower capacities. In terms of speed, the SSD write speeds are slower than HDD, but read and random access speeds are much faster than HDD.
And keep the baby from pissing on it too.
Perhaps the name should be changed from Netbooks due to their ability to transform into Nyetbooks. I propose Kittenbook.
It's telling that, even for the people who thought that they wanted a netbook, only 70% of them were satisfied with their purchase afterwards. That's abysmal.
Here is the criteria I use.
Screen Size- >15" notebook; <15" netbook.
Cpu- Dual Core: Notebook; Atom: netbook.
O/S- Vista: Notebook; XP: Netbook
Ram- >=2GB: Notebook; <=2GB Netbook
I bought a Dell laptop (Notebook) for around $400 last fall. I cannot see anyone justifying spending as much as they are asking for the "Netbooks." Unless you specifically want/need something small.
Additionally, 43% of consumers who purchased a 32" TV were upset that it was not actually a 55" screen.
Gimme a break. This article might as well read "60% of consumers not able to understand the components of a computer or compare two sets of numbers side to side."
Hey it's the consumers that should be doing their proper research before making a purchase.
People are blinded by the price. They see small, $200, they figure all is good, they found a steal. Most consumers would be happy with a $500ish laptop and for quite some time (dual-core, 3gb of ram, etc). But a netbook is a second laptop, not a main one.
@Powerlurker: although, depending on the celeron, the atom gives it a run for its money (further blurring the line)
//typed from a 10" netbook
@enthreeoh: that toshiba over at newegg in today's morning deals looks like a pretty awesome buy for $380: dual-core 2.16ghz, 2gb ram, dvd writer, card reader. only 160gb hdd, but an inexpensive external can take care of that.
it's not sufficient for hard-core gaming, but certainly much more than a netbook.
@tinmanx: That's not really true anymore. A ton of netbooks are being sold with 5400rpm hard drives, because having 160GB of HD space looks a lot better on a spec sheet than 8-16GB, since most people don't immediately recognize the benefit of a SSD.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I've had my EEE for quite a few months. I got the one with the 150gb hard drive, and expanded the memory to 2gig. While I can't play World of Warcraft on it, I can do e-mail, surf the web, use my virtual machines (only tried 3 at once so far) and my favorite - watch Netflix on the kitchen counter while I cook/do dishes. It also fits nicely in my purse for the oil changes (no, it is better for the entire universe if I do not touch pieces of machinery), and I take it to work. The battery at work lasts the whole day (all 9.75 hours), but that's not with continuous use.
Acer actually makes a netbook with a full size keyboard, I considered it when I was looking at them, but decided to go with a slightly smaller one because it had a longer battery life.
To me the red flags were:
1. Price
2. No DVD
3. Atom processor
If it was inexpensive (mine was $320), had no DVD drive, and an Atom processor then I knew it was a netbook.
Of course that they were clearly marked as such everywhere I looked helped too.
@MostlyHarmless: excellent article on trimming down windows over at lifehacker. --> [lifehacker.com]
winxp + nlite = awesome!
@Darrone:
Yes there is. It's a red line with blinking LED lights that will likely attract lawyers. Intel and Microsoft have defined the new screen size limit on future Netbooks to be 10.2". That only applies to Netbooks made using the Atom processor and Windows7. It won't stop companies from marketing larger machines and calling them "Netbooks" but those won't qualify for the lower licensing fee for Windows7 that's associated with Netbooks. Reported in August's MaximumPC Magazine.
@merist: I don't think the screen size is necessarily true, I'm not sure I've seen any mainstream netbooks bigger than 10.1". The rest I agree with.
I still don't get how people are surprised at their bad performance when the specs of all netbooks are 1.6 GHz Atoms, which have an obviously lower performance number than nearly any notebook processor. That should be as obvious as horsepower on a car.
I got a decent notebook for about 450 a few months ago. I've seen Best buy advertising a toshiba/HP notebook for about $350, but it appears to be a single core 1gb system... Still probably better than a netbook.
@Darrone: Well, the screen size at 7-10 inches and 1.6 GHz Atom processor are currently definite indicators of a netbook. There are a few starting to up the power but for now they're still quite easy to tell apart.
@jamesdenver: "Jeez don't people look at hard drive space?"
Are these the same people who barely can get their photos off a memory card and create pic files called "Copy of a Copy of a Copy of Image1009.jpeg"?
The understanding of net versus note book is probably lost on them...
This kind of stuff always makes me sad. I know I'm more technically inclined than the average consumer but it is not very hard to differenciate with a little bit of research. Also the sales people at the stores (assuming they bought it at a brick and mortar) should ask some questions in regards to what they want to do with their device. Then tailor their choice based on that.