2008 saw the emergence of what certain laptop vendors would have you believe is a revolutionary new form of mobile computing: the netbook. And while some deem these devices too small or too weak to have any serious utility, several confluent factors are giving these netbooks a greater purpose.
While vendors are already stretching the definition of ‘netbook’ (see the relatively pricey ASUS S101), most are small, cheap as chips and low on processing power. The prototypical eeePC 701, for example, can be picked up for around $350 from many e-retailers. It is both small (weighing less than a kilo) and weak (sporting a 900 MHz single-core CPU).
In reality these devices are nothing new: both HP and Compaq experimented with palm-sized, Qwerty keyboard-toting laptops around the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. At the time these devices didn’t have a huge impact. But the recent re-emergence of the concept comes when mobile broadband is faster and cheaper than ever, and software developers are looking to provide means for cloud-hungry users to get their mobile fix.
Slow and steady
These netbooks are cheap primarily because of their low processing power: they almost universally sport a 1.6 GHz single-core Atom processor, and if they don’t, it’s always something more modest, like the eeePC 701’s 900 MHz CPU. This pales in comparison to the processors found in even the slowest of today’s conventional full-size notebooks, which tend to feature 2.0 GHz dual-core CPUs.
So your netbook won’t be running any high order database analyses anytime soon, and it won’t let you do any complicated photo manipulation in Photoshop. In fact, for many of your favourite, modern applications, it’s utterly useless.
But these weak devices are more than capable of running a simple web browser, making them the ideal conduits to services hosted on remote servers. Given the wide range of existing web apps, and the torrent of new ones appearing daily, you might not need anything other than a web browser to make your netbook do all that you need it to do.
Simply chromatic
Like users, vendors are also embracing the web app revolution. Primary among these developments is Google’s Chrome which, despite its appearance, is definitely not a web browser.
In reality Google is positioning Chrome as a web app browser: software devoted to rendering web-based applications. While Chrome may consume more compute resources than slim alternatives FireFox and Opera, its performance in web apps vastly outstrips the competition. This is thanks to its enhanced Javascript engine, which renders the AJAX that web apps rely on much faster than any other browser.
Additionally, Chrome considers each web app as a discrete process, a feature which has two effects. Firstly, if an app crashes, the rest of your Chrome tabs and windows will continue to operate without disruption. This has long been a disadvantage of web-based services: if a website did something naughty and made your browser crash, you would lose any work you’d done in any other window.
Secondly, it makes each application look and feel like a distinct app, without a web browser’s interface. While this may seem an insignificant superficiality, it has the psychological effect of disentangling the ‘app’ from ‘web app’. So, for all back- and front-end intents and purposes, the user is not browsing the web, but rather using an application.
Chrome also integrates Google Gears, software that allows users to access web apps when not connected to the web. When offline, Gears collects any changes a user makes to their documents until the computer re-establishes a connection to the internet. Upon reconnection, Gears merges all the updates the user has made to the server, ensuring the user can work even when not online.
Chrome is, however, just one example of a bridge between local and remote computing. Enterprises have been playing with the thin-client model of remote computing for years, and certainly more organisations will invent new methods to access cloud-based apps in the future. Chrome is notable because it makes the concept available to more people, for a lesser outlay of capital.
Wireless wizardry
All this would be moot if users had no way of connecting to these applications while out and about. And while the current global economic meltdown may have halted the plans of several state governments to blanket their cities in Wi-Fi, mobile 3G broadband is getting faster and cheaper.
To get online, users usually invest in an external solution such as an ExpressCard or USB modems. This is because netbooks so far typically only feature local Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity, and although software like the aforementioned Google Gears means users need not be online all the time, this is far from ideal.
However, some netbook manufacturers have realised that users want integrated mobile broadband: this month, Everex will launch a 10.2” netbook with the option of WiMAX or 3G connectivity, while LG’s oddly named Momo will carry a 3G chip as standard. Dell’s Mini Inspiron 9, meanwhile, already does so.
Furthermore, recent whispers suggest that mobile carriers want to subsidise 3G-enabled netbooks, footing a good portion of the upfront cost of the device if customers agree to a mobile broadband contract. Dell’s CEO in particular has been vocal on the matter.
A ways to go
But although these embedded chips are becoming more common and wireless broadband is becoming cheaper, prices are still too high for many users.
Kevin McIsaac of analyst firm IBRS says Australian users don’t really want to pay more than $20 a month for mobile broadband. And while some carriers feature plans in this price range (Virgin promises 1 GB for $19.95/month), most charge quite a bit more than this.
Wireless broadband isn’t the only obstacle to a society of netbook-carrying users.
Firstly, usability is a concern: these devices are so small that the keyboards they carry are typically too uncomfortable to type on for any long period of time. So they’re simply unsuitable for many tasks. Touch-typists, too, will feel a certain sense of revulsion.
Secondly, the transition from familiar client-based applications to new, cloud-based applications will also prove too large an obstacle for some, according to McIsaac, who uses himself and IBRS as an example. Despite embracing many web applications to facilitate his work, he and his fellow analysts have been using Microsoft Word for decades, and a company-wide change would be too difficult.
“Even though we don’t need any of its advanced functionality, we use Word. It’s not the best solution but it’s one that everybody’s comfortable with,” he says.
Something bigger
Interestingly, this emergence of netbooks is merely a symptom of a much wider trend, according to McIsaac, who predicts a future in which all types of mobile devices — smartphones, PDAs, laptops and netbooks — are widely used to access web apps.
“We are heading to a new environment. I think netbooks are part of the puzzle, but I don't see any one client device dominating over the other,” he says.
This future will stem from the platform-neutral nature of the internet: it doesn’t matter what type of device you’ve got, McIsaac says, so long as it has a capable web browser. This will, in turn, lead to a blurring of the boundaries between laptop and mobile phone: the big difference between smartphones and laptops in the long term will not be one of capability, but rather the size of the device’s keyboard and screen.
Accordingly, the device you use will ultimately depend on its size more than anything else. “It's really going to come down to what's most convenient for the task you do most often as to what you carry,” he says.
What is certain is that we are on the cusp of change, according to McIsaac. “Many of the factors are now in place. We've got roughly the right form factors, we've got some really great applications out there, and mobile broadband prices are becoming reasonable.
“You'll see an explosion, an evolution in many directions, and I don't think we’ll go down that path where we went with Microsoft, where one platform dominates. I think that’s finished,” he says.