Engadget covered a story from the China times that Netbook sales are on the rise to 11% of all notebook sales, with an anticpated increase to over 18%.

Engadget covered a story from the China times that Netbook sales are on the rise to 11% of all notebook sales, with an anticpated increase to over 18%.

As you may have heard, the Consumer Electronics Show ended last week, and the big news was Sony's little microwonder - the Sony P. Sony says the P is not a netbook, but its too small to be a laptop - whatever you want to call it - it reminds me of my old Sony Picturebooks (most of which I had to import because Sony claims they were too small for American hands.)

Anyway - in addition to the P, Gizmodo indicates that Sony released 70 new products at the show.

70?
70!

I have to ask Sony and HP (who is also a prolific releaser of numerous models, all incrementally different)- why?

Quick Update - Both Gizmodo and EnGadget have great interviews with the designed of the Sexy Sony P

Gizmodo also just posted a hands on review.

Almost two years after we wrote about the need for a dual screen laptops, it looks like IBM is going to release one later in 2009 Thinkpad W700.

Problem is that it will weigh 10.9lbs....

sorry not quite there guys!

My laptop experiences date back to the original Compaq Luggable, followed by the Amstrad PPC640, and it was a big shift to go to the clamshell design of the first Toshiba laptops (with click on ball point trackballs).

A long wave of Toshiba laptops transitioned into a longer wave of Sony laptops - all in the pursuit of a higher resolution screen (I remember paying $5,000 for the first 1024x768 color screen offered in a laptop - the Toshiba Tecra), and I remember helping my wife, Kahleetah, order her first color laptop and its big feature was integrated sound (she fully amortized the life of that 10 year old laptop as we recently sold it on a garage sale).

So in short, I've watched laptops evolve, and have actively participated in maximizing their use in my day to day business.

Contrary to what Intel executives have publically stated Intel I believe netbooks are a paradigm shift for the laptop world.

Case and point, I recently ordered an Acer Aspire One from Amazon to cover my computer needs while my favorite laptop, the Sony TZ was being fixed under a massive recall/warranty.

As I was unwilling to spend much on a new laptop, certainly not before the new Sony TT laptop was released, I explored the cheapest laptops that could meet my needs. Unfortunately for me, I was just starting the beginning of the heavy teaching season and I had a lot of time on the road, so the smaller the laptop the better.

After an exhaustive search through all of my favorite technology blogs and online resources, I ended up ordering the Acer Aspire One from Amazon and I must say the machine has surprised me.

I opted for Windows XP, 1 gig RAM, 160 gig harddrive, and the 6 cel battery all for $399.

Yes $399.

Some 90% cheaper than my Sony TZ was (yes my TZ is tricked out with a SSD and regular harddrive), and about 80% cheaper than the next Sony TT I would like to possesses (I would love to have blu-ray, not for video, but for backups as that is the format we backup all of our computers too).

I spent a few hours installing my software and configuring everything to be just right and I can tell you that Windows XP has a lot less hassle than Windows Vista as it relates to day to day tasks… but that is a story for another day.

The Acer comes with two SD slots, so I have the ability to carry another 16 gigs of data around in one slot and a free slot to download pictures from my digital camera. This extra storage is of course in addition to the 160 gigabyte harddrive, which is plenty enough for the puny installation footprint of Windows XP, MS Office, and the other tools I need + my data.

Having used an OQO for a long time, I expected a puny processor and a long wait time for the computer to load/open Outlook (another less than favorite tool that my iPhone forces me to use).

BUT much to my surprise, the Acer’s ATOM Intel processor blasted through Outlook and most of what I could throw at it, in no time at all.

So at the end of eight weeks of use, I was highly impressed with the machine and its abilities – and I would say it does 95% of what my Sony TZ does for me in day to day work.

That said, I do have two small gripes about the design –
Gripe #1 – the mouse buttons are on either side of the touchpad – which makes for some tricky right clicking
Gripe #2 – there isn’t a PCCARD or ExpressBusCard slot – so I wasn’t able to use my Sprint Internet Card (I later bought a clunky external adapter)

(Some people will correctly point out that the netbooks are missing CDROM/DVD optical drives and while that is true, I just don’t use mine much, I don’t want the extra weight of carrying it around and when I need one I can always pull one from across the network or just plug an external drive in).

So where is the paradigm shift?

About 20 years ago, Bill Gates was quoted as saying that prices on hardware would continue to plummet until the cost of the hardware was less than the software, and thus, no longer relevant in the consumers decision to purchase.

Said another way, now that you can purchase a full featured laptop for less than the cost of MS Office, the hardware battle between Sony, Apple, Toshiba, Compaq, HP, etc. may no longer be as relevant.

And unfortunately, the same is true of the software.

You see, this machine was sold with a free version of Linux before it was released with Windows XP – in fact, that machine retails for $299 – add the openoffice.org version of the Office Suite, and you have about 80% of what most windows users have…

So as both hardware and software become essentially “free” what is the next great trend?