I’ve never really thought that ultraportables were worth the price premium. These laptops are generally underpowered and have smaller hard drives and less RAM. For the privilege of shedding a few pounds (generally less than 4 lbs), the price shoots up exponentially. It is in the category of “so not worth it” and explains why most notebooks sold weigh more like 5 or 6 pounds, and spend most of their life on a desk as more of a desktop replacement.
Netbooks are seriously changing that equation. With almost all of them less than 4 or even 3 pounds, the era of portable computing is finally upon us. All this at a price that allows us to have some dough leftover to buy something else to attach to our printer on our desk. This report is suggesting that for this year, the number of netbooks will outsell the number of ultraportables by a factor of two to one. With the current pricing, it’s pretty obvious why.
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