Comments on The Radioactive Yak: The Rise of the Tablet and the Innevitable Death o...

I wonder if they will build a tablet with a decent...

2011-03-08T18:40:08.147Z

I wonder if they will build a tablet with a decent keyboard... or maybe an arm netbook with android.

i would love to buy a xoom or an other android tab...

2011-03-08T14:53:09.462Z

i would love to buy a xoom or an other android tablet. but because i need a companysoftware which runs only on windows, i can't trash my netbook and taking both alon isn't really an option, because my netbook can al a tablet can...

"If you need to type, bring a laptop. If weig...

2011-03-08T12:13:50.567Z

"If you need to type, bring a laptop. If weight is an issue, bring your tablet"

How about both? I think it's disingenuous to call netbooks one-trick ponies, you've just pointed two things they do well.

Mine runs vi, zsh and as many programming languages and services as I can throw at it (as well as all the media I need), yet I can comfortably hack on it on the train and it only cost £200. Why would I want anything else? I find I don't miss a more powerful laptop.

If you're proposing notebooks will simply get cheaper, lighter and smaller until they have the same benefits current netbooks do, that's more of a reasonable argument. I'd argue that's just the death of the netbook label, though (as Wladimir points out).

I don't agree either. I really like my netbook...

2011-03-08T09:26:11.821Z

I don't agree either. I really like my netbook, and although I like tablets, my computer usage seems to be pretty much focused on typing (managing systems though ssh, typing code, typing documents, etc).

I prefer mechanical keys instead of a touch screen for typing because you can type without looking.

I'm pretty sure there will be a niche for netbooks as small, portable laptops. Especially when travelling, it's great to have a small device that is essentially a full laptop. The "netbook" name might disappear, though.

Erm, I don't agree that tablets spell the end ...

2011-03-08T07:17:35.584Z

Erm, I don't agree that tablets spell the end of netbooks. Not until they are comparable in both price and storage. A £200 netbook with a 250Gb hard drive can hold all of my music and videos. The biggest tablets offer is 64Gb at present and are at least twice the cost. It's a no brainer choice for people on a budget.

I'm also not sure that the tablet form factor lends itself to typing for hours like you suggest... but that is secondary to the price. I'm not going to surrender my netbook until decent tablets are £250 or less.

With teenaged children, a $200 netbook can stand u...

2011-03-08T03:50:43.425Z

With teenaged children, a $200 netbook can stand up to some rough handling and still get the homework finished (with a lot of video-Skyping on the side).

I admire that you believe could write a book on a tablet. I couldn't face writing even a 5-page report on a touchscreen, no matter how large the keys were. I guess I could haul around a keyboard with a tablet, but a netbook seems so much simpler if I care about travelling light.

We probably agree, though, that we'll see convergence, with more touchscreens appearing on lower-end laptops, and a user experience and UI more like that of a tablet. Once touchscreens get cheap enough to appear on netbooks, it will be hard to tell the difference between a netbook and tablet -- it's just that some tablets will have fold-out keyboards, while others won't. That's when the category will truly die.

2011-03-08T03:47:38.670Z

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Not sure I totally agree to be honest. Tablets hav...

2011-03-07T20:17:58.805Z

Not sure I totally agree to be honest. Tablets have their place, but if you want to do more than watching videos, playing games and some light web browsing they aren't really the best choice. As pointed out by other commentors, coding is one thing you can't yet do on a tablet. Even with a nice IDE (or even a nice editor) I would still much prefer a physical keyboard. I guess you could argue that you could use a Bluetooth keyboard, but really what is the point then?

So you are saying that Chrome is dead and Android ...

2011-03-07T18:53:38.767Z

So you are saying that Chrome is dead and Android has won ;-)

what about ChromeOS?

2011-03-07T18:26:53.353Z

what about ChromeOS?

Conferences: you need it to type, and weight is an...

2011-03-07T18:17:58.033Z

Conferences: you need it to type, and weight is an issue.

I would seriously bemoan the demise of netbooks.

Plus you can see yourself in the screen and comb y...

2011-03-07T17:01:45.668Z

Plus you can see yourself in the screen and comb your hair before the meeting starts!

Once Google releases a web-based IDE for Android t...

2011-03-07T16:56:45.798Z

Once Google releases a web-based IDE for Android there's no case for a Netbook at all. Until then as a developer I still think that a Netbook has more use.. namely you can write small amounts of code on it.