Netbooks

Yesterday, Elena was showing off her new Samsung netbook in the office. It has a 10 inch screen, 160 gigs of storage, web cam, 8 hour battery and sleek styling - and runs all of the standard Office type programs you would want to run. Not too long ago, I paid $2K for a ultra light laptop with similar specs. Sure the processing speed was faster, but for my purposes, a netbook is pretty useful. When I heard the price I was blown away - this cool netbook cost less than $500. And this one is at the high end of the netbook spectrum, with many in the $300-400 price range.
Immediately, I started thinking that if you pair this 2lb device with a mobile card, it is the ultimate road warrior. And then I started thinking about the discounts that we will probably see in the not so distant future. The $199 netbooks with a 1-2 year Verizon contract is probably not too far off.

Compare this to the $2,000 I spent last year on a similar product.

Holy crap! The speed in which we are seeing disruption is accelerating in the personal computing industry. A tough economy, and a product that offers killer utility at 30-50% less money than a traditional machine, will cause considerable pain to these businesses - probably as soon as next quarter. Intel is already getting hammered, and these devices with their less expensive chips will only make matters worse. But it's a good time to be a consumer...