Digital Home Thoughts: Watch out Ultraportables! Netbooks Are Coming After You Next!

"But why shouldn’t a netbook be able to do more? Ultimately, what every mobile user wants is a 10” or 12” netbook that is as powerful as today’s expensive 17” laptops or even desktops. But in attempting to drive down prices as low as possible, netbook manufacturers haven’t made better-performing, tiny form-factor machines a priority."

When netbooks first came out, I almost felt robbed. I had recently purchased a Fujitsu P1610 ultraportable laptop. Both shared a lot of similar features, like a long battery life, modest performance and a tiny form factor. The big difference was price with netbooks a good quarter of what my ultraportable cost. As reviews started coming in, I felt a bit better in noting that my trusty investment fared a bit better than its low cost cousins. However, it is several years later, and the performance gap is shrinking. Tom's Hardware looks at the current state of ultraportables compared to netbooks, and with ION, the difference is hardly that big anymore. Actually, if anything, it is the stagnant CPU that is Atom which has hobbled the development of our beloved toys. Of course, if you believe Intel, anything faster is overkill.