2009 Year of the Netbook?

Any besides me been reading engadget lately? Boy, seems like everyone and their dog is releasing new netbooks for CES. Lenovo, hp, msi, Acer with the new 10" Aspire (Aspire Ten? Aspire Two?) ... about the only ones I haven't heard from recently is Asus... but they already have the sleek and pretty S101.

The trend seems to be "fill the gap" between 8.9" and 15" screen size, with 10" dominant, but 11, 12, and 13.3" models popping up a lot too. AMD has released the NEO, a low power Athlon variant, which coupled to an ATI graphics chipset should produce a nice balance of horsepower and battery life in the slightly larger models. And with nothing but good news from the Windows 7 betas running on low-power systems, it seems to be full steam ahead.

Left behind would appear to be SSDs, Linux, and VIA, who have been talking up the Nano for so long now they are about to be lapped twice by the competition.

My biggest curiosity is how Microsoft will handle Windows 7 licenses for netbooks, if they charge full desktop oem costs Linux will once again be attractive, but they can't really do the "give it away for free" stunt they do with XP, since its no longer old software.

 

Personally, I can't understand the companies urge to take their small (8.9") netbooks (light, cheap, simple) and then make them bigger. The major selling points of the AAO for me were form factor and price.

I'd hope that Acer produce a late 2009 AAO which keeps the form factor, and the price point, while building on what they have. (I guess that implies I think the new 10 incher will be heavier and pricier!).

If they keep it simple, then 2009 will be the year of the netbook.

 

i agree on the comment been 2009 the net book year, since i bought mine, i'm seeing people changing them from 15, 17, 14, even 13 inches laptop to net books of all kinds i mean once u go net book u just think why on earth haven't u gone this directions on the past, i mean i have a pavilion hp laptop the 5710us model and i just used to watch some movies i mean with my blue wonder here i do pretty much everything, of course is not the same as my power desktop which i build for gaming but i mean with an acer xp and 160gb version u do pretty much everything u need on the street.

i live in Dominican republic and been this a 3rd world country u don't see one of these every day, so everyone has the bigger models, over here like other country's, people prefer to buy the biggest and powerful ones thinking that their better but once the seat down and try this baby the are actually preffering this from laptops like alieware laptops, dell xps , or media hp laptops, i mean net book in general are simple, powerful, excelent distribution, and with the moderns times that u actually dont have time to sit down enywere they are just perfect.

 

There's no doubt that netbooks are gaining in popularity, but I'm not sure in what sense you believe that Linux has been left behind. Sure, there have been many false dawns about the Year of the Linux Desktop, but it continues to become more popular, albeit remaining less commonly used than Windows or Mac OS.