Transmission from CES: What’s Up With Netbooks?

It's always interesting to see how a product category handles the progression from being the hot new technology at previous Consumer Electronic Shows, to being a more accepted, if not mature, member of computer society.

With 2010, we see netbooks take a few different paths toward maintaining their dominance of the portable computing market.

More Portable

Battery life is always a concern for those users that are always on the go, and netbook manufacturers are looking to help out with devices built from the ground up to use as little power as possible and wring out as much as 11 to 14 hours of run time from a single charge. Less time connected to a wall outlet means less time stuck in one place.

The other portability development we’re seeing is even thinner netbooks, designed to be slim enough that keeping one with you at all times becomes a serious possibility.

More Performance

For some netbook users, it’s entirely acceptable to sacrifice some portability and battery life in exchange for more powerful, on-the-go, netbook performance. More powerful processors, with multiple cores, are being combined with improved video cards to make it possible to play hi-definition videos with fewer issues, or even take in some (still light) 3D gaming.

While not every netbook user needs a more powerful netbook, these beefed up devices will help make more processor-orientated tasks, such as quick edits of SD video, something of a possibility for when you absolutely need to get them done on the go.

More Choice

The wealth of different options becoming available will really help the product category become more mature, and help bring about more choices to fit the specific needs that potential buyers need for their highly portable digital life.