A look at the current notebook market dynamics reveals a paradigm shift
in power, performance and form factor. A notebook weighing just about
2kg and has a screen size of less than 13.3 inch and a battery life of
four plus hours was once categorised as an ultraportable notebook. This
taxonomy was in vogue in early 2000, and in the last four years the
notebook market has undergone a sea change with 2005 seeing the
disruptive development of Intel launching its second generation
Centrino chip on the Sonoma platform that took the notebook battery
backup to new levels. That set the tone for the
times to come where one saw the emergence of the dual core era that
ushered in power and performance never seen before.
All along the notebook industry banked on two aspects -form factor and
performance. But both of these aspects had struggled to co-exist in
perfection all these years. If the notebook was a performance monger,
it always looked bulky and weighed a lot. On the other side a slim
notebook prioritised a sub 2kg weight and an extended battery life and
an unreasonably high end user price and yet not fully functional.
It is in this backdrop, Asus launched its first ever netbook that
changed the rules of the ultra portable notebook market. The
cheap no frills decent performance Netbooks offered all day computing
with up to eight hours plus battery backup and wireless made it a
gadget for the frequent executives-surprisingly the Netbook
was initially conceived as a device for young adults like
school/college students.
But Netbooks shook the ultra portable notebook market and defied vendor
expectations and all vendors launched it following Asus with Dell
jumping in the fray recently. But with Intel Atom processor at its
heart Netbooks offered limited functionality but the ASV of just about
Rs 20K justified that. Clearly the emergence of Netbooks
altered the consumer expectations on the form factor and increasingly
they looked at sleek and slim form factor notebooks and looked at
machines that are one step above the Netbooks with greater
functionality at lesser price. Here is where Intel’s Core
Solo Processors are emerging as the best fit. Core Solo is an ultra low
voltage processor from Intel that brings amazing battery life of eight
hours and best part is Core Solo machines can cost about just Rs 33K.
Take the case of Acer’s newly launched Timeline series that
has redefined the ultra portable segment from a price and performance
perspective. On a very thin form factor Acer has launched the Timeline
notebooks with Core Solo starting prices of Rs 33K. Yet another leading
trend in the recent times is the further maturity of 13.3 and 14 inch
screens and last quarter saw most of the vendors coming with high
definition screens. With lots of free hi-def videos on the web, a
high-definition screen makes for clear display and amazing video
experience.
Small form is the current marketing mantra for
vendors. Even players like HP have recently
launched its ProBook notebook series with features that were once the
domain of its high price ultra portables. Dell with its Studio laptops
too is competing in this space. A look at all these developments
clearly indicate the changing buyer expectations and vendors’
emphasis on delivering new range of products that are redefining the
notebook market that’s becoming a portable gadget in the
strict sense-compact, functional and highly affordable.
Small Form Takes Notebook World by Storm
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