Netbooks can't replace laptops, predicts Dell

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 24 May 2010, 22:32 IST
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Bangalore: The soaring popularity of netbooks has come down as they are not the viable choice to replace laptops. Even with such merits of low cost and light weight, Dell does not see light at the end of the tunnel for netbooks. Laptops, with their more powerful processors, cannot be substituted by netbooks. The reason behind this is that netbooks are not as fast or functional as laptops. "Some of our competitors have positioned [netbooks] as a replacement device, and then you see feedback from customers that are disappointed when they gave up their notebook for a netbook and find that it's not quite as fast or doesn't have quite the same functionality," said Steve Felice, President of Dell's Consumer and Small and Midsize Business Unit. The trend of fading interest toward netbooks was reflected in processor shipment figures reported by research firm IDC in April. The numbers confirmed the decline in the shipping of Intel Atom processors that are used in most netbooks for the first quarter of 2010 than they did previously. Atom's market share also fell from 24 percent to 20 percent during the period. Dell observes netbooks as complement of laptops and not their replacements. It says users should not rely on netbooks as their primary computers. Stronger demands for computers in the first quarter of the year meant Dell did a good business. It has done particularly well in emerging markets like India and Brazil.