Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
GeekNights 090105 - Netbooks
Tonight on GeekNights we discuss the netbook phenomenon. In the news, Amazon is going to allow reverse-charging on S3, Twitter phishing, and distributed nuclear power plants.
Scott's Thing - The Assumption Song
Rym's Thing - Electric Idiots
Scott's Thing - The Assumption Song
Rym's Thing - Electric Idiots
Comments
@Scott, concerning the Google homepage and bandwidth: If they truly are concerned about bandwidth usage they would've done a far better job at that. Go look around, there have been several people who independently discovered that the Google search main page is not optimized for least bandwidth usage.
So I built myself a very-carefully constructed double-male adapter, and blocked off the other end so that it couldn't kill anyone. Mind you, if you were on the third floor of my house, and near my lights, it's likely that I'd want you dead (or injured) anyway.
My adapter has since been destroyed.
I would, however, advocate something like this for rural townships and small communities. Imagine the savings in maintenance and loss if outlier electric lines were replaced with local, independent grids.
Not upgrading to a new version of a program is always an option. However, I'd rather have a new version that is designed to work on a low end machine. This way, I won't be missing out on new security features and any other important changes in the newer versions.
What you're asking for is a future-proof netbook, which is really silly when you think about it. The point of a netbook is that it's a piece of shit. That's why it's so cheap. The reason they are viable is because the rate of systems requirement increases has been decreasing for quite awhile. When application requirements start to move forward again, today's netbooks won't be able to run the newest stuff. Applications developers aren't going to stop moving forward just because it will obsolete slow crappy machines. They never have before, and they never will. Just because slow machines are suddenly cool, isn't going to change anything.
A netbook these days is about as powerful as a desktop from four or five years ago. When you buy one, you accept everything that goes along with that. You can't buy a cheap used car and then expect it to last you 10 years. It's just not going to happen. What you can expect is for it to get you from point A to point B for the time being. That's what you get with a netbook. It gets you from A to B. You get what you pay for.
Take the IPhone, for example. It doesn't have the processing power of a decent computer. Nonetheless, developers are going to make sure that there are applications that run well in the IPhone for the foreseeable future. Since mobile devices will always play a role in the tech sector, there will always be streamlined apps that are made for them.
The problem with a netbook is that it's like buying an old, crappy Palm device in a world full of IPhones. If technology improves at all, you're either stuck using old software or getting a new machine.
If netbooks were $200, I would totally understand. But they aren't. A netbook that is not a complete joke is in the $350-$450 range. At that price point, I just don't get it. I'd be tempted to have an IPhone and a decent laptop. Although I have to confess that I haven't had much hands-on time with an IPhone.
It will be interesting to see what netbooks do to the ultra-portable market. The markets are definitely different, but I wonder if people will be pissed off spending $2,000 for a small machine when there are a plethora of small machines that are cheap. I understand the difference between the machines, but that's not to say that consumers won't have some resentment paying such a high premium for an ultra-portable.
Even if a netbook is your only computer, for most people that's not a big deal. Sure, it can only browse the web, watch youtube, send instant messages, play solitaire, and do other little things. That's all that the vast majority of people do! Even if new applications and things come along, these people aren't going to get into them for years and years. Remember, there are people out there still running Windows 98 with IE5, and they just don't know or care. They can do their e-mails facebooks, and youtubes. The netbook gets it done at the lowest price, and has added benefits of portability.
However, after trying one of the better netbooks, I decided that the experience was annoying. The trackpad was way too small, and the screen resolution was too small. Some models have keyboards that are also absurdly small. To me, an improved user experience is worth something in and of itself.
Since portability is not something I value highly, I'm going to split the baby down the middle and get a good laptop that is somewhat less portable than an ultra-portable.
But I definitely see how different machines suit different people. For that reason, it's good to see netbooks filling a void that existed in the market. If I had to carry my computer around a lot, I'd gladly go with a netbook. Even I couldn't justify $1,600 more for computing power that I would rarely, if ever, need. I would just have to value the portability more than the inconveniences resulting from the small size of the netbook.
I still predict that netbooks will inadvertently lead to a decline in the price of ultra-portables. (At least ultra-portables that aren't high end in the spec department.) But that's probably just wishful thinking on my end.
Remember, a netbook can be made small because it is slow and old. An ultra-portable can be made small because it's wicked expensive, and has the latest and greatest miniaturization technology. No computer with middle of the road specs will be made so small. It's too powerful to be made small without drastically increasing the price. That drastically increased price is too much to warrant the middle of the road specs.
For the time being all tiny laptops are going to be either wicked fast or wicked slow. If you want a middle of the road ultra-portable you'll have to get a used/old one.
$199 netbook! Free shipping.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220475
Use coupon code EMCABAGAJ
Oh, and I'm alright with netbooks making a "black hole" and slowing down improvements. For all 19 years that I've been alive and computing, there has always been some level of lag that drives me nuts, whether I was listening to music and checking my e-mail 8 years ago, or watching a movie and checking my facebook this week. The day that (almost) every application would start, work, and close as soon as the intended button is pressed (and not a second later) is the day I say computer improvements are finished.* Not the day that some lab has enough power to simulate the universe.
I think that almost all lag will be eliminated from simple functions within the next ten years, but it's only come close because we've learned to improve the efficiency, not the features, of applications. If having iphones and netbooks will bring us closer to that, then I'm all for it.
*On a side note, I think everyone who says "there's no other way we can improve so-and-so" lives to eat those words. Weren't people saying there was no chance graphics could improve anymore after every generation?
Here's an experiment you can do at home. Get two buckets. Put room temperature water in one bucket. Completely lukewarm. Let the water sit out for awhile just to make sure. Get another bucket, and fill it with ice water, so it's freaking cold. Put one hand in the ice water for a little bit. Let it get cold, but don't frostbite yourself. Then put your cold hand in the warm water. See what it feels like.
When you want to talk about instant, we have to talk about measuring time. We don't know if time is discrete, so what counts as instant? Will 1 millisecond response time be good enough for you? Maybe half a millisecond? Oh, but that will start to feel slow when people have picosecond response times. You see where this is going.
I think when we get to the Denno Coil computer glasses, we will still be looking for the next big thing.
Personally, I think, maybe, life shouldn't be so instant. Waiting isn't that hard.
I could see this having an effect on games but most people buying this will probably have a PC or just play flash games.
EDIT: =D too slow.