back to article Samsung to 'exit netbooks'

That's it for netbooks then - so far as Samsung is concerned. The South Korean giant is to phase them out next year in favour of 11.6in laptops and Ultrabooks, French-language site Blogeee.net claims. In an email purportedly sent by Samsung to its retail partners, the manufacturer said: "Following the introduction of our new …

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  1. Martin
    FAIL

    "The netbook market has slumped over the past couple of years, in no small part thanks to the arrival of sleek, slim tablets."

    No - the netbook market has slumped due to the fact that the prices and specs are still more-or-less the same as they were two years ago. Drop the price of netbooks (currently £199-£329) to, say, £129-£229 and watch them shift.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ermm

      Nice idea, but I think the manufacturers would like to turn a profit...

      1. Gordon 10

        Yes

        And by and large the reason they cannot is intels pricing and m$'s.

        The Netbook computing user experience has not moved forwards so why would sales?

    2. squilookle
      Thumb Up

      Yes, I would like a Netbook, but I don't NEED one.

      So, if I can have one cheap (the price range suggested by Martin would be fine), and easily install my Linux distro of choice (I get on fine with Win7 Home Premium on my desktop but have no interest in Starter Edition) and have everything, including wireless and webcam work with no fuss, I'll buy one and be happy with it.

      Hope Samsung et al are listening, but I'm not holding my breath.

    3. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      Linux

      There's also the possibility that everyone who wanted a netbook has got one by now. The SSD-based are particularly sturdy and so replacement sales are low. My EEE 701 is still running happily after 3 years (thanks to Bodhi Linux) and is still in daily use.

      Tablets are catering to a different market sector entirely.

  2. James 51

    Pity as Samsung made some of the best. I think netbooks have failed to shift because basically, they were left to stagnate. Keep seeing the same product for three years at the same price and everything else around it getting faster and cheaper, it's not hard to see were they went wrong.

  3. Dave 15

    Why would you want a netbook?

    It is too big to fit in a pocket so you may as well carry something a decent size, the spec is so low it does nothing really useful so you need to carry something a decent size.

    A laptop is good, a smartphone is good, a netbook is something stuck in the middle thats got the worst of both.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Netbooks got too big

    Started off at 7", then 9", then 10.1" then feck knows. Now it's pretty much a notebook with a hobbled processor at the same price.

  5. Chris 244
    Unhappy

    Samsung N150

    Bought one cheap; solid, matte screen, does the job. Don't know what the netbook haters are going on about, was good for travel and now lives in my kitchen. Gets more use than any other computing device in the house.

    Too bad Samsung is getting out, I liked their kit over the competition.

  6. Ramazan
    Linux

    x86 CPU

    x86 virtualization is killing feature, but Atom doesn't support VX bit, hence it's at disadvantage vs modern ARM processors which are much faster and draw ten times less power. The only thing I need an intel CPU on notebook for is HPOVSD (and Lotus Notes to lesser extent). Gaming is anyway is crippled on any notebook except maybe 5kg 17" ugly alienware monsters, I just prefer to use microITX GTX580 winxp machine for that.

  7. ChrisInAStrangeLand
    FAIL

    This is mostly Microsoft's fault. In order to get a windows starter license you had to ship a product with no ram and a tiny low-res screen. Now Macbook Air is the most popular product in the segment.

  8. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    Has anything changed?

    In the absence of any generally accepted *definition* of netbook, versus notebook, versus laptop, versus ultrabook, this announcement basically amounts to "We're not going to offer a 10-inch screen in next years line-up, but we'll have slightly smaller and slightly larger.".

    On a tech news site, this probably *does* quality as news, but no way are Samsung exitting any sector.

  9. Greg Eden

    A Tablet is a netbbok without a keyboard.

    The EeePC700 was ground breaking. It offered a few simple applets running on a cut down version of Linux. It was small and you could carry it around easily to check email or read the news. At a pinch you could even type on one for small documents. Then they just kept making them bigger and putting Windows on them, while restricting the power of the hardware. They were no longer netbooks, just cramped underpowered notebooks.

    Then someone had the bright idea of removing the keyboard, make it a touch screen and using a cut down OS with small apps to make it easy to carry around and do stuff. At a pinch you can even type on one for small documents. Meanwhile notebooks have gone back to being notebooks.

    :)

  10. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    A few factors...

    1) What Uncle Slacky says. I already have a netbook, and don't feel any need to buy another one. I would guess a lot of people already have theirs, the new ones are not significantly better, so they aren't going to upgrade just to upgrade. (With the lack of Linux-based ones compared to earlier on they actually have been downgraded.)

    2) **Windows**. The largest mistake they've made is to stop shipping most with Linux and stick Windows 7 crippled edition on them, then people that review, test, or use them view them as "barely adequate" or maybe just "inadequate", Win7 is too bloated for an Atom. Mine shipped with Ubuntu and it runs great. They've also let prices creep up and up as they add more RAM, faster Atoms, and so on, to try to accomodate Windows, as well as paying for that Windows license.

    3) re Ramazan... Some Atoms *do* have this, my Z520 (1.33ghz Atom) supports VT-X (shows up in /proc/cpuinfo as vmx) as well as flexpriority (which apparently helps interrupt handling in virtual machines.) Also, ARM uses 1/10th the power, not "10 times less" (that would be a negative value.)

    4) I have no intention of buying another Intel-based netbook. I'm quite chuffed at the possibility of buying an ARM-based one. I have a keyboard on my phone, and am not interested in a tablet without a keyboard either. So, it'll either be an "ARM Netbook", or a "tablet with a keyboard" -- I don't really give a toss which they call it. I like Android well enough but would prefer to just run Ubuntu for ARM (or some other Linux distro if 11.10 stays as wrecked as it is now...)-- I've run Debian or Ubuntu on MIPS, Alpha, PA-RISC, Sparc, and PowerPC (in addition to usual x86) and these are not second-class citizens -- as long as you've got enough RAM and enough processing power, you won't miss x86 a bit.

  11. MacGyver
    Unhappy

    Ok, what are they going to call a sliding keyboard tablet?

    I still am waiting to be able to buy that Samsung TX100, now called the Samsung PC7 Slider.

    It has been almost a year since it was displayed at CES, and it still isn't available.

    The closest thing was that Asus slider, but it ran Android, the TX100 ran Windows 7.

    I like Android just fine, just not on my primary computing device, and that damn TX100 was my only option for a sliding tablet that ran Windows (or Linux if you wanted).

    I'm worried that they were classifying their PC7 as a "netbook" and their announcement means I will never be able to buy a sliding-keyboard equipped sub-10" Windows tablet (and Windows 8, is not really Windows).

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