The War’s A Commin’

You see commercials espousing the utility, convenience, and portability of netbooks more and more on television and other places, but just how futuristic are they?

The ability to compute on the go has been around for quite a while, a point that needs no elaboration. Nowadays though, with the advent of widespread access to EDGE and 3g networks (and 4g presumably on the way within a year or two) portable computers are entering a type of use not common previously. As we know from commercials, now you can sit on the dock by the ocean with your netbook being a condescending prick to the person next to you because you’re too busy browsing the web and video chatting with your homeboy to be a normal person.

My question is, why don’t people just get smartphones?

The Palm Pre, iPhone, New Blackberrys etc. All have similar capabilities to netbooks, which have a market niche for extremely light computing and web browsing. If you absolutely NEED the use of a computer with the ability to use the net anywhere, I personally feel its foolish to invest in a notebook that will only be good for light computing instead of getting a USB 3g adapter available for your normal notebook from all the same service providers.

Smartphones are getting so advanced these days, and considering dual core processors will likely be available in them in 2010, their abilities are only going to only multiply. I think that anyone would have a hard time convincing me that they NEED a netbook for what they do instead of using a smartphone or just getting a USB network adapter for access to EDGE and 3g networks.

On another note, the AT&T contract for exclusive iPhone service ends in 2010, and Apple in my opinion will likely make their killer app available to multiple networks, who will then have to compete with one another in terms of price and service.

Can you say tethering?

Internet connection tethering is written into the 3.0 operating system for the iPhone, but AT&T will not allow it for some obvious reasons, one of them being that you don’t have a real choice in providers. In europe and canada, however, certain providers (O2 for example) are allowing tethering as a way of offering a one up on the competition.

In a year or two when the iPhone is A) 4G capable, B) available on multiple carriers, and C) able to tether its internet connection through 30 pin connector (USB) or through bluetooth netbooks will be DONE. There will officially be absolutely no advantage in having one.

Google’s Chrome OS, recently announced, offers a stripped down operating system focused on performance and light mobile computing tasks like web and email. Tell me how this is at all different from other mobile OS platforms? (Android, OS X, Windows Mobile)

Google’s Chrome OS will ensure that your underpowered netbook will run smoothly, but in all honesty I have to say that this is not a very appealing notion to the tech-savvy. I don’t want to browse the internet on an abridged operating system ensuring that I can basically do nothing else.

In conclusion, netbooks and operating systems that pander to them are already antiquated and it is my opinion that they will die out before they gain widespread popularity, and deservingly so.