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Gadgets Netbooks Assault Amazon Sales Charts
Brandon Hill (Blog) - September 25, 2008 8:52 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 37 comment(s) - last by cochy.. on Sep 26 at 10:31 AM

Intel Atom

MSI Wind
Netbooks capture 9 of the top 10 notebook sales spots on Amazon.com

Intel's Atom processor has become the darling of the netbook market. Intel's 45nm processor runs at 1.6GHz and provides adequate performance for everyday computing while keeping power consumption very low.

Intel's Atom is also attractively priced so it has become a must-have processor for manufacturers looking to jump in on the $300 to $500 netbook market. Nowhere is this more evident than on Amazon.com's laptop sales leader board according to Mac Rumors.

Netbooks currently occupy nine of the top ten spots on the sales chart. The only non-netbook on the top 10 list is the 2.4GHz Apple MacBook which rings in at $1,203.98 after a $75 rebate. On the other hand, the netbooks on the list range in price from $329.99 for the Acer Aspire One and ASUS Eee PC 900 16G to $479.99 for the ASUS Eee PC 1000H.

All of the netbooks on the list -- with the exception of the Eee PC 900 -- use Intel's 1.6GHz Atom processor. Of the nine netbooks on the top ten list, seven of them are running Windows XP Home.

If we expand the standings to include the top 20 notebooks, netbooks occupy 16 of the top 20 spots.

The brisk sales of Atom-based netbooks seem to indicate that Intel is making inroads on increasing production of the popular processor. DailyTech reported in late August that some manufacturers have been forced to use Intel's older Celeron M 353 due to Atom shortages.

Looking forward, Intel is not resting on its laurels with the current single-core 1.6GHz Atom processor. Earlier this week, Intel began shipping its dual-core 1.6GHz Atom processors which have a TDP of 8W.

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and yet...
By omnicronx on 9/25/2008 9:51:09 AM , Rating: 3
And yet people still pay an arm and a leg for a pc with a fruit on the top.




RE: and yet...
By nosfe on 9/25/2008 10:00:28 AM , Rating: 5
and its not even a whole fruit, someone has taken a bite out of it!


RE: and yet...
By therealnickdanger on 9/25/2008 10:12:33 AM , Rating: 2
Interesting... I love wikipedia sometimes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer#Logos


RE: and yet...
By BladeVenom on 9/25/2008 1:11:32 PM , Rating: 1
When it comes to fashion the name and logo are the most important features. Don't look at the as electronics, but as fashion accessories.


RE: and yet...
By foolsgambit11 on 9/25/2008 2:00:53 PM , Rating: 5
Hey, let's not demean Steve Jobs.

Oh, you were talking about the logo, not the corporate structure....


Question to netbook owners..
By InvertMe on 9/25/2008 9:52:03 AM , Rating: 3
What do you use them for? Two co-workers at my company own them and carry their netbooks in addition to their normal laptop, blackberry and other electronic items. I see them pull them out and turn them on but never actually do any work or anything productive on them.

I don't see the purpose of one of these when you already have a laptop that you must carry around.

So please fill me in because I just don't see a practical application for most people.




RE: Question to netbook owners..
By Quiescent on 9/25/2008 10:13:34 AM , Rating: 2
I still have my EeePC 4g Surf from December 2007. I use it for all my basic needs. It's actually my first laptop in general. I can OC it to 1Ghz if I need to, I use 800x600 resolution because 800x480 is awkward for XP. I've used this for Photoshop, Dreamweaver. Until I ran out of space for Photoshop, and found a light-weight WYSIWYG editor. I currently have the following programs installed:

uTorrent, Adobe Reader, Audacity, cain & abel, Finale Notepad, Google Chrome, HD Tune, Java, Master of Orion II, mIRC, Firefox, Nvu, Simcity 2000, Speedfan, Treesize, VLC, EeeCTL, EeePC Res utility, SNES emulator, SNES games, Pidgin Portable, Damn Nfo viewer, Winamp, wireshark, Microsoft Office 2003.

I use of all of these. Some more than others. But it's very capable of doing things, though it's not so good at multitasking. It is capable of doing one intense thing and smaller, less intense things.

I don't see why these people would have one except to have it as a novelty item, if they found a laptop that suits them. For me, this EeePC suits me, because I'm small in size just like the Eee. It fits perfectly on my lap without any teetertottering going on, it does everything I want it to, so I can reduce the amount of time on my desktop, in general, I got it, because overall it is perfect for me.

I also like how I've had XP installed on here for 9 months, and there are no slow-downs. It still boots up as fast, it still runs as fast, it still executes programs as fast, it still does everything like it was a fresh install.

But they probably don't need it.


RE: Question to netbook owners..
By consumerwhore on 9/25/2008 2:12:06 PM , Rating: 3
Ditch Adobe Reader and install Foxit Reader. Doing that will make the "reading PDFs" activity go from the "intense" category to the "smaller, less intense" category.


By 4wardtristan on 9/25/2008 6:09:33 PM , Rating: 2
second'ed

foxit takes 2secs to open, if that..


RE: Question to netbook owners..
By cochy on 9/26/2008 10:31:08 AM , Rating: 2
Kaspersky keeps warning me of major vulnerabilities in Foxit. You may want to look into that.


RE: Question to netbook owners..
By zolo111 on 9/25/2008 1:40:47 PM , Rating: 2
I'm in the market for the right netbook. I don't use my T61P that often ( Penryn 2.4Ghz, 3GB memory, 160GB 7200RPM, Nvidia Q 570M, 15.4" 1680X1050, 9-cell battery), I find myself using my desktop almost all the time. I'd like to sell my thinkpad, and get one of those sexy netbooks to use while I'm away for browsing internet, watching movies, torrenting. Instead of hauling the T61P with me, and not using all the power, since I'm so used to using my desktop with the 37" TV I got. The netbook will be used for light stuff only. I like the idea of netbooks.


RE: Question to netbook owners..
By Oregonian2 on 9/25/2008 2:27:18 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
What do you use them for? Two co-workers at my company own them and carry their netbooks in addition to their normal laptop, blackberry and other electronic items. I see them pull them out and turn them on but never actually do any work or anything productive on them.


Good question. Have you asked them?

Don't think they're typical. They may just want to look like they're working with a lot of stuff. :-)


A little misleading here...
By Homerboy on 9/25/08, Rating: 0
RE: A little misleading here...
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 9/25/2008 10:14:10 AM , Rating: 3
Second paragraph:

quote:
Nowhere is this more evident than on Amazon.com's laptop sales leader board according to Mac Rumors.


How many time do you need it specified? :)


RE: A little misleading here...
By Homerboy on 9/25/2008 12:14:04 PM , Rating: 2
Somewhere in the misleading headline :P


By foolsgambit11 on 9/25/2008 2:12:23 PM , Rating: 2
Interesting that there isn't a single Vista laptop in the top 20.... All Macs, Linux, and XP. I guess people are deciding that beefier /= better. I've got an $800, 14.1" HP that runs Vista fine, but I could see myself downgrading to a $400 Linux netbook without any impact on my mobile computing habits.

I kind of expected the Mac Rumors link would point that out. Instead, it only suggested Apple might lower prices on MacBooks to compete.

As an aside, could you imagine an Apple NetBook? I don't think I can in the foreseeable future.


Lack of Models
By Flunk on 9/25/2008 10:12:49 AM , Rating: 2
The majority of the "netbooks" (not a real industry term) only come in one or two models so a listing like this is misleading because of the great variety of more powerful notebook models available.

Also, the source of the data is suspect because Amazon allows sponsorship to affect ratings.




RE: Lack of Models
By Oregonian2 on 9/25/2008 2:34:30 PM , Rating: 2
Asus has a plethora of different base models and they've not been making them for long. MSI, even in a basic single unit has a large number of variations on their base model (each with a different order number each of which show up as a separate Amazon or newEgg item).

"Power" has nothing to do with what's called netbooks -- other than how long the batteries last per charge. It's not the point of the product class. It does steal away notebook sales though because they were the only alternative to the not-so-well addressed usage requirements (ultra-lights did technically, but didn't meet the cost requirements very well).


I would LOVE to see...
By Oralen on 9/25/2008 12:06:38 PM , Rating: 3
An Atom netbook whose battery life is not crippled by it's old chipset anymore, or by Intel's hardware limitations, or by Microsoft's XP Licensing schemes...

But they're both protecting their own more lucrative products...

So I guess I'll wait a little bit more, and see if things change a little.

That's the name of the game: "Version 2 will be better..."




Broken record
By therealnickdanger on 9/25/08, Rating: -1
RE: Broken record
By MrTeal on 9/25/2008 10:11:51 AM , Rating: 2
Why on earth would you want to play a game on a 7" netbook?


RE: Broken record
By ET on 9/25/2008 11:46:26 AM , Rating: 2
(Note: I'm not the poster of the previous message.)

I don't. I want to play a game on a 9" netbook.

But the real answer is: because it's portable. I can carry it anywhere and play anywhere. I don't get the exact gameplay experience of a desktop or big laptop, but I have a lot more opportunity to play, because the netbook will be with me in most places.

I have a Fujitsu P1510D, which is what a netbook was like a few years ago (that is, similar power to today's netbooks, but several times the price). I've used it for gaming, and it was a bad experience, because of the limited RAM and the awful Intel 915 graphics. But it was the difference between gaming at less than ideal conditions and not gaming at all. A better gaming netbook is definitely desirable in my book.


RE: Broken record
By Suntan on 9/25/2008 6:01:25 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
A better gaming netbook is definitely desirable in my book.


www.openpandora.org

-Suntan


RE: Broken record
By therealnickdanger on 9/25/2008 3:17:42 PM , Rating: 4
This is so funny. Is this NOT a tech a technology enthusiast website? Do we not get excited over things like over-clocking, modding, and tweaking? Is the rationale "because it's cheap" mean that I'm not allowed to modify the device as I see fit? Should I not want to mess with it and make it perform better than the manufacturer intended? In other words, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

<3


RE: Broken record
By AssBall on 9/25/2008 4:41:54 PM , Rating: 2
Maybe its that you think Poulsibo will be decent gaming performance...


RE: Broken record
By therealnickdanger on 9/25/2008 4:56:56 PM , Rating: 2
Given that the EEE PC can play Halo PC (the only game I really care about) and that Poulsbo is supposed to be better... Yes.


RE: Broken record
By 306maxi on 9/25/2008 11:02:10 AM , Rating: 2
Firstly a dual core with HT is NOT a quad core. I had a Northwood 2.8 back in the day and HT did help but it was no substitute for having another physical core.

Secondly why would you want full HD on something that only has a 7 or so inch screen? The resolution is going to be intolerably high for such a small screen.

Thirdly
Vista will use more resources if you have Aero enabled which will drain battery life. Long battery life is one of the main features of netbooks.

and finally
Why put a very expensive SSD in what is in notebook terms a low spec machine? Think of it like putting tyres from an F1 car on your wifes shopping trolley/kid taxi. It's just a waste of time, effort and money for very little reward

I would quite like an EEE PC myself purely to have something that's portable and which isn't a total waste of electricity when being used for web browsing like my PC is. A netbook which you could watch stuff on in HD and play modern games on will be about as useful as a chocolate teapot. The power required for such a machine would mean you'd be permanently attached to a wall socket to keep the thing going.


RE: Broken record
By napalmjack on 9/25/2008 11:34:20 AM , Rating: 2
What a refreshingly-English comment!


RE: Broken record
By therealnickdanger on 9/25/2008 3:00:55 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
dual core with HT is NOT a quad core

Hence the quotations on the words "quad core". I know it's not a true quad core, and I know its performance will be nothing close to one. The point is, however, that you have the capability of executing 4 threads at once, making multi-tasking not only possible, but pleasant.

quote:
Secondly why would you want full HD...

Why not? More and more video content is high-def. A lot of movies and videos ripped on my media server are HD. Ever been to gametrailers.com for example? They have HD versions of every video. Without HD-acceleration, you can't view them. I would rather squeeze a 720p or 1080p video DOWN to the native res than upscale a 480p video UP.

quote:
will drain battery life

Don't care. It should be noted that the Poulsbo chipset consumes far less power than 945, so running Aero on Poulsbo would likely be a wash with current 945 netbooks running XP anyway... but I still don't care, I'll be plugged in the majority of the time.

quote:
Why put a very expensive SSD...

Why not? I'm starting to think that no one has any imagination anymore! Storage devices on these netbooks are horrendously sluggish - why not free up the device to operate at its maximum capability? Now if the system is proven (y'know, with facts) to be unable to saturate the X25-M, then I'll settle for a slower, cheaper SSD, but I don't think you can argue that you wouldn't see an impressive boost in performance.

For the record, I put the best tires I can on any car I own in order to get the highest possible safety benefit for rain/snow/dry weather. I'd like to think that money is well spent in protecting my family. ;-)

quote:
A netbook which you could watch stuff on in HD and play modern games on will be about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

LOL, that's genuinely funny. Well, clearly you want to do less than what I want to do. I want "pocket potency" for the cheapest possible price.


RE: Broken record
By 306maxi on 9/25/2008 3:39:59 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
LOL, that's genuinely funny. Well, clearly you want to do less than what I want to do. I want "pocket potency" for the cheapest possible price.


That's like saying "i want a car that looks like a goat and does 0-60 in 2 seconds". Yeah sure that's what you want but it's impractical. Squeezing all those things into a normal size laptop these days is pretty hard. Squeezing them into a netbook sized machine and keeping weight down and battery life sensible is not going to be cheap.

I want a lot of things, honestly I do but you're just dreaming if you think that you're going to get this sort of machine within the next year or two. By all means go for beefy machine but don't downsize it to the point where the benefits of having a beefy machine are lessened.

The HD trailers on that site were nice, my PC handled them very well. That's the thing..... most people will continue to have a PC and netbooks in their current form don't conflict with that because netbooks are simple and cheap machines made to perform basic tasks like read email, browse the internet and do things on word, excel and so on. I see the point of that and I think the current breed of machines are well priced. But most people won't want to spend a premium over their desktop to buy the machine you're describing. Perhaps in a few years that sort of technology might be cheap and small enough to fit into a 7-9" screen machine but right now you're dreaming.

For the record I only put the best tyres on mine and my wifes cars but that wasn't the point of my remark and I think you knew that.....


RE: Broken record
By therealnickdanger on 9/25/2008 4:55:10 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Yeah sure that's what you want but it's impractical.

The point is that it's impractical to you. To me, it seems very reasonable. Dual-core Atoms are on the way, Poulsbo is on the way. Here's a hypothetical:

A netbook comes out in 6 months with the features I'm looking for and it costs $499 (the price of a heavier, bottom-rung laptop). I only have to add 2GB RAM ($30 @ Newegg) and an SSD of choice ($200-500 depending on capacity, SLC vs MLC, etc.). The SSD market is so volatile right now that it's hard to know what will be available in 6 months, but I think all the crappy MLC drives will likely be phased out by then, prices will continue to fall while speeds and capacities continue to rise... I'm not saying with any real certainty, but the trend is such that I think you could have a VERY capable, fully functional laptop in a netbook form for well under the price of the "mini notebooks" that are always so expensive.

If you and 90% of the people reading this want to buy a netbook, keep it stock, and just check e-mail for four hours, I think that's wonderful. That's just not what I want to do. Whether it be for portable gaming (mostly just Halo PC and emulation) or installing it into my car as a CarPC, I want that performance in a small package, even if I have to build it myself.

What you do with your "tyres" is your business, buddy! :D


RE: Broken record
By PointlesS on 9/25/2008 11:37:25 AM , Rating: 4
A bunch of different companies make these. They're called notebooks.


RE: Broken record
By zolo111 on 9/25/2008 1:30:38 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The time is almost right. I'll buy when I can get:

- Dual-core Atom w/HT ("quad core")
- Poulsbo chipset (full HD-acceleration and decent gaming performance)
- Upgradeable RAM (self-explanatory)
- Upgradeable 2.5" HDD bay (Intel X-25M anyone?)
- I don't care if you include XP, Ubuntu, or no OS (I'll just load Vista)


Vaio TT will give ya all of what you need, and then some; and it only costs $3000. But hay, if you're looking for those features in a small form factor notebook, then pay up.

There's a reason why they're called NET books. X-25M, HD & gaming shouldn't come to mind when shopping for a $400 netbook.


RE: Broken record
By therealnickdanger on 9/25/2008 3:12:43 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
HD & gaming shouldn't come to mind when shopping for a $400 netbook.

You should tell that to Intel. They designed Poulsbo just for that purpose:

"The graphics core does include a full HD video decode engine that can fully accelerate H.264, MPEG-2 and VC-1 video streams. Intel claims that the engine is capable of decoding full bitrate Blu-ray movies however it lacks the ability to decode a second stream, and thus can't be certified for use in a Blu-ray device. Intel claims that the platform will only consume 120mW during H.264 decode.

Then there's the issue of output resolution. The graphics engine only allows a 1366 x 768 output resolution, so while it can decode a full 1080p HD stream, it can only output it at a lower resolution.

On the 3D side Poulsbo's GPU is said to support both DX9 and DX10, but the initial driver will only support DX9L. Honestly, in situations like these we'd be surprised to see anything beyond the initial level of graphics support. GPU performance isn't going to be anything tremendous but we did see Poulsbo running UT2004 quite well in a live demo. Intel told us to expect a 3DMark '05 score around the 150 point mark."

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...


RE: Broken record
By 306maxi on 9/25/2008 4:16:02 PM , Rating: 2
There's the small issue of outputting that to a reasonably priced 7-9" screen at a HD resolution while not having to use a magnifying glass to get any benefit from there being a HD picture.

Notebooks already do a good job of this sort of thing.... why do you want to miniaturise it all and drive the cost up for no reason?


RE: Broken record
By excelsium on 9/25/2008 8:08:14 PM , Rating: 2
Well it's inevitable, at some point your cellphone will run crysis properly whilst decoding 1080p video to its own or to an external display - it is endlessly more convenient to have more and more power in a smaller and smaller space using less and less power.


RE: Broken record
By Doormat on 9/25/2008 2:34:42 PM , Rating: 2
I just want the DC Atom, 1GB and half decent SSD - it doesn't need to be a high performance one, just 60MB/s r/w, 16GB.

I'm not going to play games, just internet, word, excel, ppt. I might play some old DOSBOX games if it has the horsepower (it should).


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