Nov 22

The more time I spend looking into Netbooks the more I see people trying to pigeon hole them into certain criteria.  In my first post I deliberately kept my definition of a Netbook reasonably brief. The reason was that it should be what the market decides is a netbook, sure it’s got some parameters but if they get too focussed then the designers and manufacturers might stifle their creativity in order to deliver what the market knows instead of what it might be inspired by in the future.

In my first post I shared the brief versions of how different authors and organizations are defining Netbooks. My plan now is to post them as I come across them in a bit more detail.

And who better to start with than Dave Winer. I was looking through some of his blog entries as he’s a bit of a fan of the Netbook format. And came across his definition of a Netbook.

OK, I suppose it’s time to say what a netbook is…

1. Small size.

2. Low price.

3. Battery life of 4+ hours. Battery can be replaced by user. Atom processor seems to be a requirement, those that aren’t Atom aren’t selling (and are apparently being discontinued).

4. Rugged.

5. Built-in wifi, 3 USB ports, SD card reader. It seems it must have 802.11n to be taken seriously.

6. Runs my software.

7. Runs any software I want (no platform vendor to decide what’s appropriate).

8. Competition (users have choice and can switch vendors at any time).

I agree with Dave on most of his criteria, though there are several manufacturers delivering Netbooks with less than 4 hours battery life. Hopefully this will be a thing of the past in the near future. Does saying it must have an ATOM processor mean we have to think of a new name for the market segment when a better, faster, more power efficient chip comes along ? I don’t think so.